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WHOSE BODY? 



WHOSE 


BODY? 


i Dy 

DOROTHY L. SAYERS 

n 

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o 

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BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
Publishers :: New York 





Copyright, 1923, 
by 

BONI & LIYERIGHT, Inc. 


Printed in the United States of America 


MAY 23 '23 

©C1A705628 


A,1 






To M. J. 

Dear Jim : 

This book is your fault. If it had not been for 
your brutal insistence, Lord Peter would never 
have staggered through to the end of this en¬ 
quiry. Pray consider that he thanks you with 
his accustomed suavity. 

Yours ever, 

D. L. S. 



> y 



















The Singular Adventure of the 
Man with the Golden Pince-Nez 



s 

l 

“Oh, damn!” said Lord Peter Wimsey at Pic¬ 
cadilly Circus. “Hi, driver!” 

The taxi man, irritated at receiving this appeal 
while negotiating the intricacies of turning into 
Lower Regent Street across the route of a 19 
’bus, a 38-B and a bicycle, bent an unwilling ear. 

“I’ve left the catalogue behind,” said Lord 
Peter deprecatingly, “uncommonly careless of 
me. D’you mind puttin’ back to where we came 
from?” 

“To the Savile Club, sir?” 

“No—110 Piccadilly—-gust beyond—thank 
you.” 

“Thought you was in a hurry,” said the man, 
overcome with a sense of injury. 

“I’m afraid it’s an awkward place to turn in,” 
said Lord Peter, answering the thought rather 
than the words. His long, amiable face looked 
as if it had generated spontaneously from his top 
hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola. . 

The taxi, under the severe eye of a policeman, 
revolved by slow jerks, with a noise like the 
grinding of teeth. 

The block of new, perfect and expensive flats 
in which Lord Peter dwelt upon the second floor, 

1 


2 


WHOSE BODY? 


stood directly opposite the Green Park, in a spot 
for many years occupied by the skeleton of a 
frustrate commercial enterprise. As Lord Peter 
let himself in he heard his man’s voice in the 
library, uplifted in that throttled stridency pe¬ 
culiar to well-trained persons using the tele¬ 
phone. 

“I believe that’s his lordship just coming in 
again—if your Grace would kindly hold the line 
a moment.” 

“What is it, Bunter?” 

“Her Grace has just called up from Denver, 
my lord. I was just saying your lordship had 
gone to the sale when I heard your lordship’s 
latchkey.” 

“Thanks,” said Lord Peter; “and you might 
find me my catalogue, would you? I think I 
must have left it in my bedroom, or on the desk.” 

He sat down to the telephone with an air of 
leisurely courtesy, as though it were an acquain¬ 
tance dropped in for a chat. 

“Hullo, Mother—that you?” 

“Oh, there you are, dear,” replied the voice of 
the Dowager Duchess. “I was afraid I’d just 
missed you.” 

“Well, you had, as a matter of fact. I’d just 
started off to Brocklebury’s sale to pick up a 
book or two, but I had to come back for the cata¬ 
logue. What’s up ?” 

“Such a quaint thing,” said the Duchess. “I 




WHOSE BODY? 


3 


thought I’d tell you. You know little Mr. 
Thipps?” 

“Thipps?” said Lord Peter. “Thipps? Oh, 
yes, the little architect man who’s doing the 
church roof. Yes. What about him?” 

“Mrs. Throgmorton’s just been in, in quite a 
state of mind.” 

“Sorry, Mother, I can’t hear. Mrs. Who?” 

“Throgmorton — Throgmorton — the vicar’s 
wife.” 

“Oh, Throgmorton, yes?” 

“Mr. Thipps rang them up this morning. It 
was his day to come down, you know.” 

“Yes?” 

“He rang them up to say he couldn’t. He 
was so upset, poor little man. He’d found a 
dead body in his bath.” 

“Sorry, Mother, I can’t hear; found what, 
where?” 

“A dead body, dear, in his bath.” 

“What?—no, no, we haven’t finished. Please 
don’t cut us off. Hullo! Hullo! Is that you, 
Mother ? Hullo!—Mother!—Oh, yes—sorry, 
the girl was trying to cut us off. What sort of 
body?” 

“A dead man, dear, with nothing on but a pair 
of pince-nez. Mrs. Throgmorton positively 
blushed when she was telling me. I’m afraid 
people do get a little narrow-minded in country 
vicarages.” 




4 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Well, it sounds a bit unusual. Was it any¬ 
body he knew?” 

“No, dear, I don’t think so, but, of course, he 
couldn’t give her many details. She said he 
sounded quite distracted. He’s such a respect¬ 
able little man—and having the police in the 
house and so on, really worried him.” 

“Poor little Thipps! Uncommonly awkward 
for him. Let’s see, he lives in Battersea, doesn’t 
he?” 

“Yes, dear; 59 Queen Caroline Mansions; op¬ 
posite the Park. That big block just around the 
corner from the Hospital. I thought perhaps 
you’d like to run round and see him and ask if 
there’s anything we can do. I always thought 
him a nice little man.” 

“Oh, quite,” said Lord Peter, grinning at the 
telephone. The Duchess was always of the 
greatest assistance to his hobby of criminal inves¬ 
tigation, though she never alluded to it, and 
maintained a polite fiction of its non-existence. 

“What time did it happen, Mother?” 

“I think he found it early this morning, but, 
of course, he didn’t think of telling the Throg- 
mortons just at first. She came up to me just 
before lunch—so tiresome, I had to ask her to 
stay. Fortunately, I was alone. I don’t mind 
being bored myself, but I hate having my guests 
bored.” 

“Poor old Mother! Well, thanks awfully for 




WHOSE BODY? 


5 


tellin’ me. I think Ill send Bunter to the sale 
and toddle round to Battersea now an’ try and 
console the poor little beast. So-long.” 

“Good-bye, dear.” 

“Bunter!” 

“Yes, my lord.” 

“Her Grace tells me that a respectable Bat¬ 
tersea architect has discovered a dead man in his 
bath.” 

“Indeed, my lord? That’s very gratifying.” 

“Very, Bunter. Your choice of words is un¬ 
erring. I wish Eton and Balliol had done as 
much for me. Have you found the catalogue?” 

“Here it is, my lord.” 

“Thanks. I am going to Battersea at once. I 
want you to attend the sale for me. Don’t lose 
time—I don’t want to miss the Folio Dante* nor 
the de Voragine—here you are—see? ‘Golden 
Legend’—Wynkyn de Worde, 1493—got that? 
—and, I say, make a special effort for the Caxton 
folio of the ‘Four Sons of Aymon’—it’s the 1489 
folio and unique. Look! I’ve marked the lots I 
want, and put my outside offer against each. 


* This is the first Florence edition, 1481, by bJiccolo di L<> 
renzo. Lord Peter's collection of printed Dantes is worth inspec¬ 
tion. It includes, besides the famous Aldine 8vo. of 1502, the 
Naples folio of 1477—“edizione rarissima,” according to Colomb. 
This copy has no history, and Mr. Parker’s private belief is that 
its present owner conveyed it away by stealth from somewhere 
or other. Lord Peter’s own account is that he “picked it up in 
a little place in the hills,” when making a walking-tour through 
Italy. 





6 


WHOSE BODY? 


Do your best for me. I shall be back to dinner.” 

“Very good, my lord.” 

“Take my cab and tell him to hurry. He may 
t for you; he doesn't like me very much. Can I,” 
said Lord Peter, looking at himself in the eight¬ 
eenth-century mirror over the mantelpiece, “can 
I have the heart to fluster the flustered Thipps 
further—that’s very difficult to say quickly—by 
appearing in a top-hat and frock-coat? I think 
not. Ten to one he will overlook my trousers 
and mistake me for the undertaker. A grey suit, 
I fancy, neat but not gaudy, with a hat to tone, 
suits mv other self better. Exit the amateur of 

4 / 

first editions; new motif introduced by solo bas¬ 
soon; enter Sherlock Holmes, disguised as a 
walking gentleman. There goes Bunter. In¬ 
valuable fellow—never offers to do his job when 
you’ve told him to do somethin’ else. Hope he 
doesn’t miss the 'Four Sons of Aymon.’ Still, 
there is another copy of that—in the Vatican.* 
It might become available, you never know—if 
the Church of Home went to pot or Switzerland 
invaded Italy—whereas a strange corpse doesn’t 
turn up in a suburban bathroom more than once 
in a lifetime—at least, I should think not—at any 
rate, the number of times it’s happened, with a 


*Lord Peter’s wits were wool-gathering 1 . The book is in the 
possession of Earl Spencer. The Brockelbury copy is incomplete, 
the five last signatures being altogether missing, but is unique in 
possessing the colophon. 











WHOSE BODY? 


7 


pince-nez, might be counted on the fingers of one 
hand, I imagine. Dear me! it’s a dreadful mis¬ 
take to ride two hobbies at once.” 

He had drifted across the passage into his bed¬ 
room, and was changing with a rapidity one 
might not have expected from a man of his man¬ 
nerisms. He selected a dark-green tie to match 
his socks and tied it accurately without hesita¬ 
tion or the slightest compression of his lips; sub¬ 
stituted a pair of brown shoes for his black ones, 
slipped a monocle into a breast pocket, and took 
up a beautiful Malacca walking-stick with a 
heavy silver knob. 

“That’s all, I think,” he murmured to himself. 
“Stay—I may as well have you—you may come 
in useful—one never knows.” He added a flat 
silver matchbox to his equipment, glanced at his 
watch, and seeing that it was already a quarter 
to three, ran briskly downstairs, and, hailing a 
taxi, was carried to Battersea Park. 

Mr. Alfred Thipps was a small, nervous 
man, whose flaxen hair was beginning to aban¬ 
don the unequal struggle with destiny. One 
might say that his only really marked feature 
was a la^ge bruise over the left eyebrow, which 
gave him a faintly dissipated air incongruous 
with the rest of his appearance. Almost in the 
same breath with his first greeting, he made a 
self-conscious apology for it, murmuring some- 





8 


WHOSE BODY? 


thing about having run against the dining-room 
door in the dark. He was* touched almost to 
tears by Lord Peter’s thoughtfulness and con¬ 
descension in calling. 

“I’m sure it’s most kind of your lordship,” 
he repeated for the dozenth time, rapidly blink¬ 
ing his weak little eyelids. “I appreciate it very 
deeply, very deeply, indeed, and so would 
Mother, only she’s so deaf, I don’t like to 
trouble you with making her understand. It’s 
been very hard all day,” he added, “with the 
policemen in the house and all this commotion. 
It’s what Mother and me have never been used 
to, always living very retired, and it’s most dis¬ 
tressing to a man of regular habits, my lord, 
and reely, I’m almost thankful Mother doesn’t 
understand, for I’m sure it would worry her 
terribly if she was to know about it. She was 
upset at first, but she’s made up some idea of 
her own about it now, and I’m sure it’s all for 
the best.” 

The old lady who sat knitting by the fire 
nodded grimly in response to a look from her 
son. 

“I always said as you ought to complain 
about that bath, Alfred,” she said suddenly, in 
the high, piping voice peculiar to the deaf, “and 
it’s to be ’oped the landlord’ll see about it now; 
not but what I think you might have managed 
without having the police in, but there! you 





WHOSE BODY? 


9 


always were one to make a fuss about a little 
thing, from chicken-pox up.” 

“There now,” said Mr. Thipps apologeti¬ 
cally, “you see how it is. Not but what it’s just 
as well she’s settled on that, because she under¬ 
stands we’ve locked up the bathroom and don’t 
try to go in there. But it’s been a terrible shock 
to me, sir—my lord, I should say, but there! 
my nerves are all to pieces. Such a thing has 
never ’appened—happened to me in all my born 
days. Such a state I was in this morning—I 
didn’t know if I was on my head or my heels— 
I reely didn’t, and my heart not being too 
strong, I hardly knew how to get out of that 
horrid room and telephone for the police. It’s 
affected me, sir, it’s affected me, it reely has— 
I couldn’t touch a bit of breakfast, nor lunch 
neither, and what with telephoning and putting 
off clients and interviewing people all morning, 
I’ve hardly known what to do with myself?” 

“I’m sure it must have been uncommonly dis- 
tressin’,” said Lord Peter, sympathetically, “es¬ 
pecially cornin’ like that before breakfast. Hate 
anything tiresome happenin’ before breakfast. 
Takes a man at such a confounded disadvan¬ 
tage, what?” 

“That’s just it, that’s just it,” said Mr. 
Thipps, eagerly, “when I saw that dreadful 
thing lying there in my bath, mother-naked, too, 
except for a pair of eyeglasses, I assure you. 




10 


WHOSE BODY? 


my lord, it regularly turned my stomach, if 
you’ll excuse the expression. I’m not very 
strong, sir, and I get that sinking feeling some¬ 
times in the morning, and what with one thing 
and another I ’ad—had to send the girl for a 
stiff brandy or I don’t know what mightn’t have 
happened. I felt so queer, though I’m any¬ 
thing but partial to spirits as a rule. Still, I 
make ic a ruie never to be without brandy in the 
house, in case of emergency, you know?” 

“Very wise of you,” said Lord Peter, cheer¬ 
fully, “you’re a very far-seein’ man, Mr. Thipps. 
Wonderful what a little nip’ll do in case of 
need, and the less you’re used to it the more 
good it does you. Hope your girl is a sensible 
young woman, what? Nuisance to have women 
faintin’ and shriekin’ all over the place.” 

“Oh, Gladys is a good girl,” said Mr. Thipps, 
“very reasonable indeed. She was shocked, of 
course, that’s very understandable. I was 
shocked myself, and it wouldn’t be proper in a 
young woman not to be shocked under the cir¬ 
cumstances, but she is really a helpful, energetic 
got a good, decent girl to do for me and Mother, 
girl in a crisis, if you understand me. I con¬ 
sider myself very fortunate these days to have 
even though she is a bit careless and forgetful 
about little things, but that’s only natural. She 
was very sorry indeed about having left the bath¬ 
room window open, she reely was, and though I 



WHOSE BODY? 


11 


was angry at first, seeing what’s come of it, it 
wasn’t anything to speak of, not in the ordinary 
way, as you might say. Girls will forget things, 
you know, my lord, and reely she was so dis¬ 
tressed I didn’t like to say too much to her. All 
I said was, ‘It might have been burglars,’ I said, 
‘remember that, next time you leave a window 
open all night; this time it was a dead man,’ I 
said, ‘and that’s unpleasant enough, but next time 
it might be burglars,’ I said, ‘and all of us mur¬ 
dered in our beds.’ But the police-inspector— 
Inspector Sugg, they called him/ from the Yard 
—he was very sharp with her, poor girl. Quite 
frightened her, and made her think he suspected 
her of something, though what good a body could 
be to her, poor girl, I can’t imagine, and so I 
told the inspector. He was quite rude to me, 
my lord—I may say I didn’t like his manner at 
all. ‘If you’ve got anything definite to accuse 
Gladys or me of, Inspector,’ I said to him, ‘bring 
it forward, that’s what you have to do,’ I said, 
‘but I’ve yet to learn that you’re paid to be rude 
to a gentleman in his own ’ouse—house.’ Reely,” 
said Mr. Thipps, growing quite pink on the top 
of his head, “he regularly roused me, regularly 
roused me, my lord, and I’m a mild man as a 
rule.” v' 

“Sugg all over,” said Lord Peter, “I know 
him. When he don’t know what else to say, he’s 
rude. Stands to reason you and the girl wouldn’t 






12 


WHOSE BODY? 


go collectin’ bodies. Who’d want to saddle him¬ 
self with a body? Difficulty’s usually to get rid 
of ’em. Have you got rid of this one yet, by 
the way?” 

“It’s still in the bathroom,” said Mr. Thipps. 
“Inspector Sugg said nothing was to be touched 
till his men came in to move it. I’m expecting 
them at any time. If it would interest your 
lordship to have a look at it-” 

“Thanks awfully,” said Lord Peter, “I’d like 
to very much, if I’m not puttin’ you out.” 

“Not at all,” said Mr. Thipps. His manner 
as he led the way along the passage convinced 
Lord Peter of two things—first, that, gruesome 
as his exhibit was, he rejoiced in the importance 
it reflected upon himself and his flat, and second¬ 
ly, that Inspector Sugg had forbidden him to 
exhibit it to anyone. The latter supposition was 
confirmed by the action of Mr. Thipps, who 
stopped to fetch the doorkey from his bedroom, 
saying that the police had the other, but that he 
made it a rule to have two keys to every door, 
in case of accident. 

The bathroom was in no way remarkable. It 
was long and narrow, the window being exactly 
over the head of the bath. The panes were of 
frosted glass; the frame wide enough to admit a 
man’s body. Lord Peter stepped rapidly across 
to it, opened it and looked out. 

The flat was the top one of the building and 





WHOSE BODY? 


13 


situated about the middle of the block. The 
bathroom window looked out upon the back¬ 
yards of the flats, which were occupied by vari¬ 
ous small outbuildings, coal-holes, garages, and 
the like. Beyond these were the back gardens of 
a parallel line of houses. On the right rose the 
extensive edifice of St. Luke’s Hospital, Batter¬ 
sea, with its grounds, and, connected with it by 
a covered way, the residence of the famous sur¬ 
geon, Sir Julian Freke, who directed the surgical 
side of the great new hospital, and was, in addi¬ 
tion, known in Harley Street as a distinguished 
neurologist with a highly individual point of 
view. 

This information was poured into Lord Peter’s 
ear at considerable length by Mr. Thipps, who 
seemed to feel that the neighbourhood of any¬ 
body so distinguished shed a kind of halo of glory 
over Queen Caroline Mansions. 

44 We had him round here himself this morn¬ 
ing,” he said, 4 ‘about this horrid business. In¬ 
spector Sugg thought one of the young medical 
gentlemen at the hospital might have brought the 
corpse round for a joke, as you might say, they 
always having bodies in the dissecting-room. So 
Inspector Sugg went round to see Sir J ulian this 
morning to ask if there was a body missing. He 
was very kind, was Sir Julian, very kind indeed, 
though he was at work when they got there, in 
the dissecting-room. He looked up the books to 






14 


WHOSE BODY? 


see that all the bodies were accounted for, and 
then very obligingly came round here to look at 
this”?—he indicated the bath—“and said he was 
afraid he couldn’t help us—there was no corpse 
missing from the hospital, and this one didn’t 
answer to the description of any they’d had.” 

“Nor to the description of any of the patients, 
I hope,” suggested Lord Peter casually. 

At this grisly hint Mr. Thipps turned pale. 

“I didn’t hear Inspector Sugg enquire,” he 
said, with some agitation. “What a very horrid 
thing that would be—God bless my soul, my lord, 
I never thought of it.” 

“Well, if they had missed a patient they’d 
probably have discovered it by now,” said Lord 
Peter. “Let’s have a look at this one.” 

He screwed his monocle into his eye, adding: 
“I see you’re troubled here with the soot blow¬ 
ing in. Beastly nuisance, ain’t it? I get it, too— 
spoils all my books, you know. Here, don’t you 
trouble, if you don’t care about lookin’ at it.” 

He took from Mr. Thipps’s hesitating hand the 
sheet which had been flung over the bath, and 
turned it back. 

The body which lay in the bath was that of a 
tall, stout man of about fifty. The hair, which 
was thick and black and naturally curly, had been 
cut and parted by a master hand, and exuded a 
faint violet perfume, perfectly recognizable in 
[the close air of the bathroom. The features were 







WHOSE BODY? 


15 


thick, fleshy and strongly marked, with promi¬ 
nent dark eyes, and a long nose curving down to 
a heavy chin. The clean-shaven lips were full 
and sensual, and the dropped jaw showed teeth 
stained with tobacco. On the dead face the hand¬ 
some pair of gold pince-nez mocked death with 
grotesque elegance; the fine gold chain curved 
over the naked breast. The legs lay stiffly 
stretched out side by side; the arms reposed close 
to the body; the fingers were flexed naturally. 
Lord Peter lifted one arm, and looked at the 
hand with a little frown. 

“Bit of a dandy, your visitor, what?” he mur¬ 
mured. “Parma violet and manicure.” He bent 
again, slipping his hand beneath the head. The 
absurd eyeglasses slipped off, clattering into the 
bath, and the noise put the last touch to Mr. 
Thinps’s growing nervousness. 

“If you’ll excuse me,” he murmured, “it makes 
me feel quite faint, it reely does.” 

He slipped outside, and he had no sooner done 
so than Lord Peter, lifting the body quickly and 
cautiously, turned it over and inspected it with 
his head on one side, bringing his monocle into 
play with the air of the late J oseph Chamberlain 
approving a rare orchid. He th°n laid the head 
over his arm, and bringing out the silver match¬ 
box from his oocket, slinned it into the ^en 
mouth. Then making the noise usually written 
“Tut-tut,” he laid the body down, picked up the 




16 


WHOSE BODY? 


mysterious pince-nez, looked at it, put it on his 
nose and looked through it, made the same noise 
again, readjusted the pince-nez upon the nose of 
the corpse, so as to leave no traces of interference 
for the irritation of Inspector Sugg; rearranged 
the body; returned to the window and, leaning 
out, reached upwards and sideways with his walk¬ 
ing-stick, which he had somewhat incongruously 
brought along with him. Nothing appearing to 
come of these investigations, he.withdrew his 
head, closed the window, and rejoined Mr. Thipps 
in the passage. 

Mr. Thipps, touched by this sympathetic in¬ 
terest in the younger son of a duke, took the 
liberty, on their return to the sitting-room, of 
offering him a cup of tea. Lord Peter, who had 
strolled over to the window and was admiring the 
outlook on Battersea Park, was about to accept, 
when an ambulance came into view at the end of 
Prince of Wales Hoad. Its appearance reminded 
Lord Peter of an important engagement, and 
with a hurried “By Jove!” he took his leave of 
Mr. Thipps. 

“My mother sent kind regards and all that,” 
he said, shaking hands fervently; “hopes you’ll 
soon be down at Denver again. Good-bye, Mrs. 
Thipps,” he bawled kindly into the ear of the old 
lady. “Oh, no, my dear sir, please don’t trouble 
to come down.” 

He was none too soon. As he stepped out of 




WHOSE BODY? 


17 


the door and turned towards the station, the am¬ 
bulance drew up from the other direction, and 
Inspector Sugg emerged from it, with two con¬ 
stables. The Inspector spoke to the officer on 
duty at the Mansions, and turned a suspicious 
gaze on Lord Peter’s retreating back. 

“Dear old Sugg,” said that nobleman, fondly, 
“dear, dear old bird! How he does hate me, to 
be sure.” 





“Excellent, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, sinking 
with a sigh into a luxurious armchair. “I couldn’t 
have done better myself. The thought of the 
Dante makes my mouth water—and the ‘Four 
Sons of Aymon.’ And you’ve saved me <£60— 
that’s glorious. What shall we spend it on, 
Bunter? Think of it—all ours, to do as we like 
with, for as Harold Skimpole so rightly observes, 
£60 saved is £60 gained, and I’d reckoned on 
spending it all. It’s your saving, Bunter, and 
properly speaking, your £60. What do we 
want? Anything in your department? Would 
you like anything altered in the flat?” 

“Well, my lord, as your lordship is so good” 
—the man-servant paused, about to pour an old 
brandy into a liqueur glass. 

“Well, out with it, my Bunter, you imperturb¬ 
able old hypocrite. It’s no good talking as if you 
were announcing dinner—you’re spilling the 
brandy. The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands 
are the hands of Esau. What does that blessed 
darkroom of yours want now?” 

“There’s a Double Anastigmat with a set of 
supplementary lenses, my lord,” said Bunter, 
with a. note almost of religious fervour. “If it 

19 


20 WHOSE BODY? 


was a case of forgery now—or footprints—I 
could enlarge them right up on the plate. Or 
the wide-angled lens would be useful. It’s as 
though the camera had eyes at the back of its 
head, my lord. Look—I’ve got it here.” 

He pulled a catalogue from his pocket, and 
submitted it, quivering, to his employer’s gaze. 

Lord Peter perused the description slowly, the 
corners of his long mouth lifted into a faint smile. 

“It’s Greek to me,” he said, “and <£50 seems a 
ridiculous price for a few bits of glass. I sup¬ 
pose, Bunter, you’d say £750 was a bit out of the 
way for a dirty old book in a dead language, 
wouldn’t you?” 

“It wouldn’t be my place to say so, my lord.” 

“No, Bunter, I pay you £200 a year to keep 
your thoughts to yourself. Tell me, Bunter, in 
these democratic days, don’t you think that’s un¬ 
fair?” 

“No, my lord.” 

“You don’t. D’you mind telling me frankly 
why you don’t think it unfair?” 

“Frankly, my lord, your lordship is paid a 
nobleman’s income to take Lady Worthington 
in to dinner and refrain from exercising your 
lordship’s undoubted powers of repartee.” 

Lord Peter considered this. 

“That’s your idea, is it, Bunter? Noblesse 
oblige—for a consideration. I daresay you’re 
right. Then you’re better off than I am, because 






WHOSE BODY? 


21 


I’d have to behave myself to Lady Worthington 
if I hadn’t a penny. Bunter, if I sacked you 
here and now, would you tell me what you think 
of me?” 

“No, my lord.” 

“You’d have a perfect right to, my Bunter, 
and if I sacked you on top of drinking the kind 
of coffee you make, I’d deserve everything you 
could say of me. You’re a demon for coffee, 
Bunter—I don’t want to know how you do it, 
because I believe it to be witchcraft, and I don’t 
want to burn eternally. You can buy your cross¬ 
eyed lens.” 

“Thank you, my lord.” 

“Have you finished in the dining-room?” 

“Not quite, my lord.” 

“Well, come back when you have. I have many 
things to tell you. Hullo! who’s that?” 

The doorbell had rung sharply. 

“Unless it’s anybody interestin’ I’m not at 
home.” 

“Very good, my lord.” 

Lord Peter’s library was one of the most de¬ 
lightful bachelor rooms in London. Its scheme 
was black and primrose; its walls were lined with 
rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa 
suggested the embraces of the houris. In one 
corner stood a black baby grand, a wood fire 
leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the 
Sevres vases on the chimneypiece were filled with 







22 


WHOSE BODY? 


ruddy and gold chrysanthemums. To the eyes 
of the young man who was ushered in from the 
raw November fog it seemed not only rare and 
unattainable, but friendly and familiar, like a 
colourful and gilded paradise in a mediaeval 
painting. 

“Mr. Parker, my lord.” 

Lord Peter jumped up with genuine eager¬ 
ness. 

“My dear man, I’m delighted to see you. What 
a beastly foggy night, ain’t it? Bunter, some 
more of that admirable coffee and another glass 
and the cigars. Parker, I hope you’re full of 
crime—nothing less than arson or murder will 

do for us to-night. ‘On such a night as this-’ 

Bunter and I were just sitting down to carouse. 
I’ve got a Dante, and a Caxton folio that is prac¬ 
tically unique, at Sir Ralph Brocklebury’s sale. 
Bunter, who did the bargaining, is going to have a 
lens which does all kinds of wonderful things with 
its eyes shut, and 

We both have got a body in a bath, 

We both have got a body in a bath— 

For in spite of all temptations 
To go in for cheap sensations 
We insist upon a body in a bath- 

Nothing less will do for us, Parker. It’s mine at 
present, but we’re going shares in it. Property 
of the firm. Won’t you join us? You really 
must put something in the jack-pot. Perhaps 








WHOSE BODY? 


23 


you have a body. Oh, do have a body. Every 
body welcome. 

Gin a body meet a body 
Hauled before the beak. 

Gin a body jolly well knows who murdered a 
body and that old Sugg is on the wrong tack, 
Need a body speak? 

Not a bit of it. He tips a glassy wink to yours 
truly and yours truly reads the truth.” 

“Ah,” said Parker, “I knew you’d been round 
to Queen Caroline Mansions. So’ve I, and met 
Sugg, and he told me he’d seen you. He was 
cross, too. Unwarrantable interference, he calls 
it.” 

“I knew he would,” said Lord Peter, “I love 
taking a rise out of dear old Sugg, he’s always so 
rude. I see by the Star that he has excelled him¬ 
self by taking the girl, Gladys What’s-her-name, 
into custody. Sugg of the evening, beautiful 
Sugg! But what were you doing there?” 

“To tell you the truth,” said Parker, “I went 
round to see if the Semitic-looking stranger in- 
Mr. Thipps’s bath was by any extraordinary 
chance Sir Reuben Levy. But he isn’t.” 

“Sir Reuben Levy? Wait a minute, I saw 
something about that. I know! A headline: 
‘Mysterious disappearance of famous financier.’ 
What’s it all about? I didn’t read it carefully.” 

“Well, it’s a bit odd, though I daresay it’s 





24 


WHOSE BODY? 


nothing really—old chap may have cleared for 
some reason best known to himself. It only hap¬ 
pened this morning, and nobody would have 
thought anything about it, only it happened to be 
the day on which he had arranged to attend a 
most important financial meeting and do some 
deal involving millions—I haven’t got all the de¬ 
tails. But I know he’s got enemies who’d just 
as soon the deal didn’t come off, so when I got 
wind of this fellow in the bath, I buzzed round to 
have a look at him. It didn’t seem likely, of 
course, but unlikelier things do happen in our 
profession. The funny thing is, old Sugg has got 
bitten with the idea it is him, and is wildly tele¬ 
graphing to Lady Levy to come and identify 
him. However, as Sir Beuben is a pious Jew 
of pious parents, and the chap in the bath ob¬ 
viously isn’t, I’m not going to waste my time. 
One thing is, the man would be really extraor¬ 
dinarily like Sir Beuben if he had a beard, and 
as Lady Levy is abroad with the family, some¬ 
body may say it’s him, and Sugg will build up a 
lovely theory, like the Tower of Babel, and des¬ 
tined so to perish.” 

“You’re certain of your facts, I suppose.” 

“Positive. Sugg, of course, says he doesn’t 
take account of fancy religions-” 

“Sugg’s a beautiful, braying ass,” said Lord 
Peter. “He’s like a detective in a novel. Well, 
I don’t know anything about Levy, but I’ve seen 







WHOSE BODY? 


25 


the body, and I should say the idea was prepos¬ 
terous upon the face of it. What do you think 
of the brandy ?” 

“Unbelievable, Wimsey—sort of thing makes 
one believe in heaven. But I want your yarn.” 

“D’you mind if Bunter hears it, too? Invalu¬ 
able man, Bunter—amazin’ fellow with a camera. 
And the odd thing is, he’s always on the spot 
when I want my bath or my boots. I don’t know 
when he develops things—I believe he does ’em 
in his sleep. Bunter!” 

“Yes, my lord.” 

“Stop fiddling about in there, and get yourself 
the proper things to drink and join the merry 
throng.” 

“Certainly, my lord.” 

“Mr. Parker has a new trick: The Vanishing 
Financier. Absolutely no deception. Hey, 
presto, pass! and where is he ? Will some gentle¬ 
man from the audience kindly step upon the 
platform and inspect the cabinet? Thank you, 
sir. The quickness of the ’and deceives the heye.” 

“I’m afraid mine isn’t much of a story,” said 
Parker. “It’s just one of those simple things 
that offer no handle. Sir Reuben Levy dined 
last night with three friends at the Ritz. After 
dinner the friends went to the theatre. He re¬ 
fused to go with them on account of an appoint¬ 
ment. I haven’t yet been able to trace the 
appointment, but anyhow, he returned home 





26 


WHOSE BODY? 


to his house—9 Park Lane—at twelve o’clock.” 

“Who saw him?” 

“The cook, who had just gone up to bed, saw 
him on the doorstep and heard him let himself 
in. He walked upstairs, leaving his greatcoat on 
the hall peg and his umbrella in the stand—you 
remember how it rained last night. He un¬ 
dressed and went to bed. Next morning he wasn’t 
there. That’s all,” said Parker abruptly, with 
a wave of the hand. 

“It isn’t all, it isn’t all. Daddy, go on, that’s 
not half a story,” pleaded Lord Peter. 

“But it is all. When his man came to call him 
he wasn’t there. The bed had been slept in. His 
pyjamas and all his clothes were there, the only 
odd thing being that they were thrown rather un¬ 
tidily on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, in¬ 
stead of being neatly folded on a chair, as is Sir 
Reuben’s custom—looking as though he had been 
rather agitated or unwell. No clean clothes were 
missing, no suit, no boots—nothing. The boots 
he had worn were in his dressing-room as usual. 
He had washed and cleaned his teeth and done 
all the usual things. The housemaid was down 
cleaning the hall at half-past six, and can swear 
that nobody came in or out after that. So one is 
forced to suppose that a respectable middle-aged 
Hebrew financier either went mad between 
twelve and six a. m. and walked quietly out of the 
house in his birthday suit on a November night. 






r 


WHOSE BODY? 27 


or else was spirited away like the lady in the 
Tngoldsby Legends/ body and bones, leaving 
only a heap of crumpled clothes behind him/ , 

“Was the front door bolted ?” 

“That’s the sort of question you would ask, 
straight off; it took me an hour to think of it. 
No; contrary to custom, there was only the Yale 
lock on the door. On the other hand, some of 
the maids had been given leave to go to the 
theatre, and Sir Reuben may quite conceivably 
have left the door open under the impression 
they had not come in. Such a thing has hap¬ 
pened before.” 

“And that’s really all?” 

“Really all. Except for one very trifling cir¬ 
cumstance.” 

“I love trifling circumstances,” said Lord 
Peter, with childish delight; “so many men havf* 
been hanged by trifling circumstances. What was 
it?” 

“Sir Reuben and Lady Levy, who are a most 
devoted couple, always share the same room. 
Lady Levy, as I said before, is in Mentone at 
the moment for her health. In her absence, Sir 
Reuben sleeps in the double bed as usual, ana 
invariably on his own side—the outside—of the 
bed. Last night he put the two pillows together 
and slept in the middle, or, if anything, rather 
closer to the wall than otherwise. The house¬ 
maid, who is a most intelligent girl, noticed this 





28 


WHOSE BODY? 


when she went up to make the bed, and, with 
really admirable detective instinct, refused to 
touch the bed or let anybody else touch it, though 
it wasn’t till later that they actually sent for the 
police.” 

“Was nobody in the house but Sir Reuben and 
the servants?” 

“No; Lady Levy was away with her daughter 
and her maid. The valet, cook, parlourmaid, 
housemaid and kitchenmaid were the only people 
in the house, and naturally wasted an hour or 
two squawking and gossiping. I got there about 
ten.” 

“What have you been doing since?” 

“Trying to get on the track of Sir Reuben’s 
appointment last night, since, with the exception 
of the cook, his ‘appointed was the last person 
who saw him before his disappearance. There 
may be some quite simple explanation, though 
I’m dashed if I can think of one for the moment. 
Hang it all, a man doesn’t come in and go to 
bed and walk away again ‘mid nodings on’ in the 
middle of the night.” 

“He may have been disguised.” 

“I thought of that—in fact, it seems the only 
possible explanation. But it’s deuced odd, Wim- 
sey. An important city man, on the eve of an 
important transaction, without a word of warn¬ 
ing to anybody, slips off in the middle of the 
night, disguised down to his skin, leaving behind 





WHOSE BODY? 


29 


his watch, purse, cheque-book, and—most mys¬ 
terious and important of all—his spectacles, with¬ 
out which he can’t see a step, as he is extremely 
short-sighted. He-” 

“That is important,” interrupted Wimsey. 
“You are sure he didn’t take a second pair?” 

“His man vouches for it that he had only two 
pairs, one of which was found on his dressing- 
table, and the other in the drawer where it is 
always kept.” 

Lord Peter whistled. 

“You’ve got me there, Parker. Even if he’d 
gone out to commit suicide he’d have taken those.” 

“So you’d think—or the suicide would have 
happened the first time he started to cross the 
road. Plowever, I didn’t overlook the possibility. 
I’ve got particulars of all to-day’s street acci¬ 
dents, and I can lay my hand on my heart and 
say that none of them is Sir Beuben. Besides, 
he took his latchkey with him, which looks as 
though he’d meant to come back.” 

“Have you seen the men he dined with?” 

“I found two of them at the club. They said 
that he seemed in the best of health and spirits, 
vSpoke of looking forward to joining Lady Levy 
later on—perhaps at Christmas—and referred 
with great satisfaction to this morning’s business 
transaction, in which one of them—a man called 
Anderson of Wyhdham’s—was himself con¬ 
cerned.” 







30 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Then up till about nine o’clock, anyhow, he 
had no apparent intention or expectation of dis¬ 
appearing.” 

“None—unless he was a most consummate 
actor. Whatever happened to change his mind 
must have happened either at the mysterious ap¬ 
pointment which he kept after dinner, or while 
he was in bed between midnight and 5: 30 a. m.” 

“Well, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, “what do 
you make of it?” 

“Not in my department, my lord. Except 
that it is odd that a gentleman who was too 
flurried or unwell to fold his clothes as usual 
should remember to clean his teeth and put his 
boots out. Those are two things that quite fre¬ 
quently get overlooked, my lord.” 

“If you mean anything personal, Bunter,” said 
Lord Peter, “I can only say that I think the 
speech an unworthy one. It’s a sweet little prob¬ 
lem, Parker mine. Look here, I don’t want to 
butt in, but I should dearly love to see that bed¬ 
room to-morrow. ’Tis not that I mistrust thee, 
dear, but I should uncommonly like to see it. 
Say me not nay—take another drop of brandy 
and a Villar Villar, but say not, say not nay!” 

“Of course you can come and see it—you’ll 
probably find lots of things I’ve overlooked,” 
said the other, equably, accepting the proffered 
hospitality. 

“Parker, acushla, you’re an honor to Scotland 





WHOSE BODY? 


31 


Yard. I look at you, and Sugg appears a myth,, 
a fable, an idiot-boy, spawned in a moonlight 
hour by some fantastic poet’s brain. Sugg is too 
perfect to be possible. What does he make of 
the body, by the way?” 

“Sugg says,” replied Parker, with precision, 
“that the body died from a blow on the back of 
the neck. The doctor told him that. He says it’s 
been dead a day or two. The doctor told him 
that, too. He says it’s the body of a well-to-do 
Hebrew of about fifty. Anybody could have 
told him that. He says it’s ridiculous to suppose 
it came in through the window without anybody 
knowing anything about it. He says it probably 
walked in through the front door and was mur¬ 
dered by the household. He’s arrested the girl 
because she’s short and frail-looking and quite 
unequal to downing a tall and sturdy Semite with 
a poker. He’d arrest Thipps, only Thipps was 
away in Manchester all yesterday and the day 
before and didn’t come back till late last night— 
in fact, he wanted to arrest him till I reminded 
him that if the body had been a day or two dead, 
little Thipps couldn’t have done him in at 10:30 
last night. But he’ll arrest him to-morrow as an 
accessory—and the old lady with the knitting, 
too, I shouldn’t wonder.” 

“Well, I’m glad the little man has so much of 
an alibi,” said Lord Peter, “though if you’re only 
gluing your faith to cadaveric lividity, rigidity. 





32 


WHOSE BODY? 


and all the other quiddities, you must be prepared 
to have some sceptical beast of a prosecuting 
counsel walk slap-bang through the medical evi¬ 
dence. Remember Impey Biggs defending in 
that Chelsea tea-shop affair? Six bloomin’ medi¬ 
cos contradictin’ each other in the box, an’ old 
Impey elocutin’ abnormal cases from Glaister 
and Dixon Mann till the eyes of the jury reeled 
in their heads! ‘Are you prepared to swear. Dr. 
Thingumtight, that the onset of rigor mortis in¬ 
dicates the hour of death without the possibility 
of error?’ ‘So far as my.experience goes, in the 
majority of cases,’ says the doctor, all stiff. ‘Ah!’ 
says Biggs, ‘but this is a Court of Justice, Doctor, 
not a Parliamentary election. Wc can’t get on 
without a minority report. The law, Dr. Thing¬ 
umtight, respects the rights o: the minority, alive 
or dead.’ Some ass laughs, and old Biggs sticks 
his chest out and gets impressive. ‘Gentlemen, 
this is no laughing matter. My client—an up¬ 
right and honourable gentleman—is being tried 
for his life—for his life, gentlemen—and it is the 
business of the prosecution to show his guilt—if 
.they can—without a shadow of doubt. Now, Dr. 
Thingumtight, I ask you again, can you solemn¬ 
ly swear, without the least shadow of doubt— 
probable, possible shadow of doubt—that this un- 
happy woman met her death neither sooner nor 
later than Thursday evening? A probable 
opinion? Gentlemen, we are not Jesuits, we are 






WHOSE BODY? 


33 


straightforward Englishmen. You cannot ask 
a British-born jury to convict any man on the 
authority of a probable opinion.* Hum of ap¬ 
plause.” 

“Biggs’s man was guilty all the same,” said 
Parker. 

“Of course he was. But he was acquitted all 
the same, an’ what you’ve just said is libel.” 
Wimsey walked over to the bookshelf and took 
down a volume of Medical Jurisprudence. 
“ ‘Rigor mortis—can only be stated in a very 
general way—many factors determine the result.’ 
Cautious brute. ‘On the average, however, stiff¬ 
ening will have begun—neck and jaw —5 to 6 
hours after death’—m’m—‘in all likelihood have 
passed off in the bulk of cases by the end of 36 
hours. Under certain circumstances, however, it 
may appear unusually early, or be retarded un¬ 
usually long!’ Helpful, ain’t it, Parker? ‘Brown- 
Sequard states ... 31/2 minutes after death.... 
In certain cases not until lapse of 16 hours after 
death . . . present as long as 21 days thereafter.’ 
JLord! ‘Modifying factors—age—muscular state 
*—or febrile diseases—or where temperature of 
environment is high’—and so on and so on— 
any bloomin’ thing. Never mind. You can run 
the argument for what it’s worth to Sugg. He 
won’t know any better.” He tossed the book 
away. “Come back to facts. What did you make 
of the body?” 






34 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Well/’ said the detective, “not very much— 
I was puzzled—frankly. I should say he had 
been a rich man, but self-made, and that his 'mod 
fortune had come to him fairly recently.” 

“Ah, you noticed the calluses on the hands— 
I thought you wouldn’t miss that.” 

“Both his feet were badly blistered—he had 
been wearing tight shoes.” 

“Walking a long way in them, too,” said Lord 
Peter, “to get such blisters as that. Didn’t that 
strike you as odd, in a person evidently well 
off?” 

“Well, I don’t know. The blisters were two or 
three days old. He might have got stuck in the 
suburbs one night, perhaps—last train gone and 
no taxi—and had to walk home.” 

“Possibly.” 

“There were some little red marks all over his 
back and one leg I couldn’t quite account for.” 

“I saw them.” 

“What did you make of them?” 

“I’ll tell you afterwards. Go on.” 

“He was very long-sighted—oddly long¬ 
sighted for a man in the prime of life; the glasses 
were like a very old man’s. By the way, they 
had a very beautiful and remarkable chain of flat 
links chased with a pattern. It struck me he 
might be traced through it.” 

“I’ve just put an advertisement in the Times 
about it,” said Lord Peter. “Go on.” 







WHOSE BODY? 


35 


“He had had the glasses some time—they had 
been mended twice.” 

“Beautiful, Parker, beautifu A . Did you realize 
the importance of that?” 

“Not specially, I’m afraid—why?” 

“Never mind—go on.” 

“He was probably a sullen, ill-tempered man 
—his nails were filed down to the quick as though 
he habitually bit them, and his fingers were bitten 
as well. He smoked quantities of cigarettes with¬ 
out a holder. He was particular about his per¬ 
sonal appearance.” 

“Did you examine the room at all? I didn’t 
get a chance.” 

“I couldn’t find much in the way of footprints. 
Sugg & Co. had tramped all over the place, to 
say nothing of little Thipps and the maid, but I 
noticed a very indefinite patch just behind the 
head of the bath, as though something damp 
might have stood there. You could hardly call it 
a print.” 

“It rained hard all last night, of course.” 

“Yes; did you notice that the soot on the win¬ 
dow-sill was vaguely marked?” 

“I did,” said Wimsey, “and I examined it hard 
with this little fellow, but I could make nothing 
of it except that something or other had rested 
on the sill.” He drew out his monocle and handed 
it to Parker. 

“My word, that’s a powerful lens.” 




36 


WHOSE BODY? 


“It is,” said Wimsey, “and jolly useful when 
you want to take a good squint at somethin’ and 
look like a bally fool all the time. Only it don’t 
do to wear it permanently—if people see you 
full-face they say, ‘Dear me! how weak the sight 
of that eye must be!’ Still, it’s useful.” 

“Sugg and I explored the ground at the back 
of the building,” went on Parker, “but there 
wasn’t a trace.” 

“That’s interestin’. Did you try the roof?” 

“No.” 

“We’ll go over it to-morrow. The gutter’s only 
a couple of feet off the top of the window. I 
measured it with my stick—the gentleman-scout’s 
vade-mecum, I call it—it’s marked off in inches. 
Uncommonly handy companion at times. There’s 
a sword inside and a compass in the head. Got 
it made specially. Anything more?” 

“Afraid not: Let’s hear your version, Wim¬ 
sey.” 

“Well, I think you’ve got most of the points. 
There are just one or two little contradictions. 
For instance, here’s a man wears expensive gold- 
rimmed pince-nez and has had them long enough 
to be mended twice. Yet his teeth are not merely 
discoloured, but badly decayed and look as if he’d 
never cleaned them in his life. There are four 
molars missing on one side and three on the other 
and one front tooth broken right across. He’s a 
man careful of his personal appearance, as wit- 




WHOSE BODY? 


37 


ness his hair and his hands. What do you say to 
that?” 

“Oh, these self-made men of*low origin don’t 
think much about teeth, and are terrified of 
dentists.” 

“True; but one of the molars has a broken edge 
so rough that it had made a sore place on the 
tongue. Nothing’s more painful. D’you mean 
to tell me a man would put up with that if he 
could afford to get the tooth filed?” 

“Well, people are queer. I’ve known servants 
endure agonies rather than step over a dentist’s 
doormat. How did you see that, Wimsey?” 

“Had a look inside; electric torch,” said Lord 
Peter. “Handy little gadget. Looks like a 
matchbox. Well—I daresay it’s all right, but I 
just draw your attention to it. Second point: 
Gentleman with hair smellin’ of Parma violet and 
manicured hands and all the rest of it, never 
washes the inside of his ears. Full of wax. 
Nasty.” 

“You’ve got me there, Wimsey; I never noticed 
it. Still—old bad habits die hard.” 

“Right oh! Put it down at that. Third point: 
Gentleman with the manicure and the brilliantine 
and all the rest of it suffers from fleas.” 

“By Jove, you’re right! Flea-bites. It never 
occurred to me.” 

“No doubt about it, old son. The marks were 
faint and old, but unmistakable.” 





88 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Of course, now you mention it. Still, that 
might happen to anybody. I loosed a whopper in 
the best hotel in Lincoln the week before last. 
I hope it bit the next occupier 1” 

“Oh, all these things might happen to any¬ 
body—separately. Fourth point: Gentleman 
who uses Parma violet for his hair, etc., etc., 
tvashes his body in strong carbolic soap—so strong 
that the smell hangs about twenty-four hours 
later.” 

“Carbolic to get rid of the fleas.” 

“I will say for you, Parker, youVe an answer 
for everything. Fifth point: Carefully got-up 
gentleman, with manicured, though masticated, 
finger-nails, has filthy black toe-nails which look 
as if they hadn’t been cut for years.” 

“All of a piece with habits as indicated.” 

“Yes, I know, but such habits! Now, sixth 
and last point: This gentleman with the intermit¬ 
tently gentlemanly habits arrives in the middle of 
a pouring wet night, and apparently through the 
window, when he has already been twenty-four 
hours dead, and lies down quietly in Mr. Thipps’s 
bath, unseasonably dressed in a pair of pince-nez. 
Not a hair on his head is ruffled—the hair has been 
cut so recently that there are quite a number of 
little short hairs stuck on his neck and the sides 
of the bath—and he has shaved so recently that 
there is a line of dried soap on his cheek—” 
“Wimsey!” 






WHOSE BODY? 


39 


—— --\- 

“Wait a minute—and dried soap in his mouth ." 

Bunter got up and appeared suddenly at the 
detective’s elbow, the respectful man-servant all 

over. 

“A little more brandy, sir?” he murmured. 

“Wimsey,” said Parker, “you are making me 
feel cold all over.” He emptied his glass—stared 
at it as though he were surprised to find it empty, 
set it down, got up, walked across to the book¬ 
case, turned round, stood with his back against 
it and said: 

“Look here, Wimsey—you’ve been reading 
detective stories, you’re talking nonsense.” 

“No, I ain’t,” said Lord Peter, sleepily, “un¬ 
common good incident for a detective story, 
though, what? Bunter, we’ll write one, and you 
shall illustrate it with photographs.” 

“Soap in his-Rubbish!” said Parker. “It 

was something else—some discoloration-” 

“No,” said Lord Peter, “there were hairs as 
well. Bristly ones. He had a beard.” 

He took his watch from his pocket, and drew 
out a couple of longish, stiff hairs, which he had 
imprisoned between the inner and the outer case. 

Parker turned them over once or twice in his 
fingers, looked at them close to the light, ex¬ 
amined them with a lens, handed them to the im¬ 
passible Bunter, and said: 

“Do you mean to tell me, Wimsey, that any 
man alive would”—he laughed harshly—“shave 








40 


WHOSE BODY? 


off his beard with his mouth open, and then go 
and get killed with his mouth full of hairs? 
You’re mad.” 

“I don’t tell you so,” said Wimsey. “You 
policemen are all alike—only one idea in your 
skulls. Blest if I can make out why you’re ever 
appointed. He was shaved after he was dead. 
Pretty, ain’t it? Uncommonly jolly little job 
for the barber, what? Here, sit down, man, and 
don’t be an ass, stumpin’ about the room like that. 
Worse things happen in war. This is only a 
blinkin’ old shillin’ shocker. But I’ll tell you 
what, Parker, we’re up against a criminal —the 
criminal—the real artist and blighter with im¬ 
agination—real, artistic, finished stuff. I’m en¬ 
joyin’ this, Parker.” 






Ill 


Lord Peter finished a Scarlatti sonata, and sat 
looking thoughtfully at his own hands. The 
fingers were long and muscular, with wide, flat 
joints and square tips. When he was playing, 
his rather hard grey eyes softened, and his long, 
indeterminate mouth hardened in compensation. 
At no other time had he any pretensions to good 
looks, and at all times he was spoilt by a long, 
narrow chin, and a long, receding forehead, ac¬ 
centuated by the brushed-back sleekness of his 
tow-coloured hair. Labour papers, softening 
down the chin, caricatured him as a typical aris¬ 
tocrat. 

* 

“That’s a wonderful instrument,” said Parker. 

“It ain’t so bad,” said Lord Peter, “but Scar¬ 
latti wants a harpsichord. Piano’s too modern 
•—all thrills and overtones. No good for our job, 
Parker. Have you come to any conclusion?” 

“The man in the bath,” said Parker, methodi¬ 
cally, “was not a well-off man careful of his per¬ 
sonal appearance. He was a labouring man, un¬ 
employed, but who had only recently lost his em¬ 
ployment. He had been tramping about looking 
for a job when he met with his end. Somebody 
killed him and washed him and scented him and 
shared him in order to disguise him, and put him 

41 


42 


WHOSE BODY? 


into Thipps’s bath without leaving a trace. Con¬ 
clusion : the murderer was a powerful man, since 
he killed him with a single blow on the neck, a 
man of cool head and masterly intellect, since he 
did all that ghastly business without leaving a 
mark, a man of wealth and refinement, since he 
had all the apparatus of an elegant toilet handy, 
and a man of bizarre, and almost perverted im¬ 
agination, as is shown in the two horrible 
touches of putting the body in the bath and of 
adorning it with a pair of pince-nez.” 

“He is a poet of crime,” said Wimsey. “By 
the way, your difficulty about the pince-nez is 
cleared up. Obviously, the pince-nez never be¬ 
longed to the body.” 

“That only makes a fresh puzzle. One can’t 
suppose the murderer left them in that obliging 
manner as a clue to his own identity.” 

“We can hardly suppose that; I’m afraid this 
man possessed what most criminals lack—a sense 
of humour.” 

“Bather macabre humour.” 

“True. But a man who can afford to be hu¬ 
mourous at all in such circumstances is a terrible 
fellow. I wonder what he did with the body 
between the murder and depositing it chez 
Thipps. Then there are more questions. How^ 
did he get it there? And why? Was it brought 
in at the door, as Sugg of our heart suggests? or 
through the window, as we think, on the not very 




WHOSE BODY? 


43 


adequate testimony of a smudge on the window¬ 
sill? Had the murderer accomplices? Is little 
Thipps really in it, or the girl? It don’t do to 
put the notion out of court merely because Sugg 
inclines to it. Even idiots occasionally speak the 
truth accidentally. If not, why was Thipps se¬ 
lected for such an abominable practical joke? 
Has anybody got a grudge against Thipps? Who 
are the people in the other flats? We must find 
out that. Does Thipps play the piano at mid¬ 
night over their heads or damage the reputation 
of the staircase by bringing home dubiously re¬ 
spectable ladies? Are there unsuccessful archi¬ 
tects thirsting for his blood? Damn it all, Parker, 
there must be a motive somewhere. Can’t have a 
crime without a motive, you know.” 

“A madman-” suggested Parker, doubt¬ 

fully. 

“With a deuced lot of method in his madness. 
He hasn’t made a mistake—not one, unless leav¬ 
ing hairs in the corpse’s mouth can be called a 
mistake. Well, anyhow, it’s not Levy—you’re 
right there. I say, old thing, neither your man 
nor mine has left much clue to go upon, has he? 
And there don’t seem to be any motives knockin’ 
about, either. And we seem to be two suits of 
clothes short in last night’s work. Sir Reuben 
makes tracks without so much as a fig-leaf, and 
a mysterious individual turns up with a pince-nez, 
which is quite useless for purposes of decency. 







44 


WHOSE BODY? 


Dash it all! If only I had some good excuse for 
takin’ up this body case officially-” 

The telephone bell rang. The silent Bunter, 
whom the other two had almost forgotten, padded 
across to it. 

“It’s an elderly lady, my lord,” he said, “I 
think she’s deaf—I can’t make her hear any¬ 
thing, but she’s asking for your lordship.” 

Lord Peter seized the receiver, and yelled into 
it a “Hullo!” that might have cracked the vul¬ 
canite. He listened for some minutes with an 
incredulous smile, which gradually broadened in¬ 
to a grin of delight. At length he screamed, “All 
right! all right!” several times, and rang off. 

6C By Jove!” he announced, beaming, “sportin’ 
old bird! It’s old Mrs. Thipps. Deaf as a post. 
Never used the ’phone before. But determined. 
Perfect Napoleon. The incomparable Sugg has 
made a discovery and arrested little Thipps. Old 
lady abandoned in the flat. Thipps’s last shriek 
to her, ‘Tell Lord Peter Wimsey.’ Old girl un¬ 
daunted. Wrestles with telephone book. Wakes 
up the people at the exchange. Won’t take no 
for an answer (not bein’ able to hear it), gets 
through, says, ‘Will I do what I can?’ Says she 
would feel safe in the hands of a real gentleman. 
Dh, Parker, Parker! I could kiss her, I reely 
could, as Thipps says. I’ll write to her instead— 
no, hang it, Parker, we’ll go round. Bunter, get 
your infernal machine and the magnesium. I 






WHOSE BODY? 


45 


say, we’ll all go into partnership—pool the two 
cases and work ’em out together. You shall see 
my body to-night, Parker, and I’ll look for your 
wandering Jew to-morrow. I feel so happy, I 
shall explode. O Sugg, Sugg, how art thou 
suggified! Bunter, my shoes. I say, Parker, I 
suppose yours are rubber-soled. Not? Tut, tut, 
you mustn’t go out like that. We’ll lend you a 
pair. Gloves? Here. My stick, my torch, the 
lampblack, the forceps, knife, pill-boxes—all 
complete ?” 

“Certainly, my lord.” 

“Oh, Bunter, don’t look so offended. I mean 
no harm. I believe in you, I trust you—what 
money have I got? That’ll do. I knew a man 
once, Parker, who let a world-famous poisoner 
slip through his fingers, because the machine on 
the Underground took nothing but pennies. 
There was a queue at the hooking office and the 
man at the barrier stopped him, and while they 
were arguing about accepting a five-pound-note 
(which was all he had) for a twopenny ride to 
Baker Street, the criminal had sprung into a 
Circle train, and was next heard of in Constanti¬ 
nople, disguised as an elderly Church of England 
clergyman touring with his niece. Are we all 
ready? Go!” 

They stepped out, Bunter carefully switching 
off the lights behind them. 




46 


WHOSE BODY? 


As they emerged into the gloom and gleam of 
Piccadilly, Wimsey stopped short with a little 
exclamation. 

“Wait a second,” he said, “I’ve thought of 
something. If Sugg’s there he’ll make trouble. 
I must short-circuit him.” 

He ran back, and the other two men employed 
the few minutes of his absence in capturing a 
taxi. 

Inspector Sugg and a subordinate Cerberus 
were on guard at 59, Queen Caroline Mansions, 
and showed no disposition to admit unofficial en¬ 
quirers. Parker, indeed, they could not easily 
turn away, but Lord Peter found himself con¬ 
fronted with a surly manner and what Lord 
Beaconsfield described as a masterly inactivity. 
It was in vain that Lord Peter pleaded that he 
had been retained by Mrs. Thipps on behalf of 
her son. 

“Retained!” said Inspector Sugg, with a snort, 
“she’ll be retained if she doesn’t look out. 
Shouldn’t wonder if she wasn’t in it herself, only 
she’s so deaf, she’s no good for anything at all.” 

“Look here, Inspector,” said Lord Peter, 
“what’s the use of bein’ so bally obstructive? 
You’d much better let me in—you know I’ll get 
there in the end. Dash it all, it’s not as if I was 
takin’ the bread out of your children’s mouths. 
Nobody paid me for finding Lord Attenbury’s 
emeralds for you.” 




WHOSE BODY? 


47 


“It’s my duty to keep out the public,” said 
Inspector Sugg, morosely, “and it’s going to stay 
out.” 

“I never said anything about your keeping out 
of the public,” said Lord Peter, easily, sitting 
down on the staircase to thrash the matter out 
comfortably, “though I’ve no doubt pussyfoot’s 
a good thing, on principle, if not exaggerated. 
The golden mean, Sugg, as Aristotle says, keeps 
you from bein’ a golden ass. Ever been a golden 
ass, Sugg? I have. It would take a whole rose- 
garden to cure me, Sugg- 

“You are my garden of beautiful roses, 

My own rose, my one rose, that’s you!” 

“I’m not going to stay any longer talking to 
you,” said the harassed Sugg, “it’s bad enough— 
hullo, drat that telephone. Here, Cawthorn, go 
and see what it is, if that old catamaran will let 
you into the room. Shutting herself up there 
and screaming,” said the Inspector, “it’s enough 
to make a man give up crime and take to hedg¬ 
ing and ditching.” 

The constable came back: 

“It’s from the Yard, sir,” he said, coughing 
apologetically, “the Chief says every facility is 
to be given to Lord Peter \Vimsey, sir. Urn!” 
He stood apart noncommittally, glazing his eyes. 

“Five aces,” said Lord Peter, cheerfully. 
“The Chief’s a dear friend of my mother’s. No 
go, Sugg, it’s no good buckin’ you’ve got a 






48 


WHOSE BODY? 


full house. I’m goin’ to make it a hit fuller.” 

He walked in with his followers. 

The body had been removed a few hours pre¬ 
viously, and when the bathroom and the whole 
flat had been explored by the naked eye and the 
camera of the competent Bunter, it became evi¬ 
dent that the real problem of the household was 
old Mrs. Thipps. Her son and servant had both 
been removed, and it appeared that they had no 
friends in town, beyond a few business acquain¬ 
tances of Thipps’s, whose very addresses the old 
lady did not know. The other flats in the build¬ 
ing were occupied respectively by a family of 
seven, at present departed to winter abroad, an 
elderly Indian colonel of ferocious manners, who 
lived alone with an Indian man-servant, and a 
highly respectable family on the third floor, whom 
the disturbance over their heads had outraged to 
the last degree. The husband, indeed, when ap¬ 
pealed to by Lord Peter, showed a little human 
weakness, but Mrs. Appledore, appearing sud¬ 
denly in a warm dressing-gown, extricated him 
from the difficulties into which he was carelessly 
wandering. 

“I am sorry,” she said, “Pm afraid we can’t 
interfere in any way. This is a very unpleasant 

business, Mr.- I’m afraid I didn’t catch 

your name, and we have always found it better 
not to be mixed up with the police. Of course, 
if the Thippses are innocent, and I am sure I 






WHOSE BODY? 


49 


hope they are, it is very unfortunate for them, 
but I must say that the circumstances seem to 
me most suspicious, and to Theophilus too, and 
I should not like to have it said that we had as¬ 
sisted murderers. We might even be supposed 
to be accessories. Of course you are young, 
Mr.-” 

“This is Lord Peter Wimsey, my dear/’ said 
Theophilus mildly. 

She was unimpressed. 

“Ah, yes,” she said, “I believe you are dis¬ 
tantly related to my late cousin, the Bishop of 
Carisbrooke. Poor man! He was always being 
taken in by impostors; he died without ever 
learning any better. I imagine you take after 
him, Lord Peter.” 

“I doubt it,” said Lord Peter. “So far as I 
know he is only a connection, though it’s a wise 
child that knows its own father. I congratulate 
you, dear lady, on takin’ after the other side of 
the family. You’ll forgive my buttin’ in upon 
you like this in the middle of the night, though, 
as you say, it’s all in the family, and I’m sure 
I’m very much obliged to you, and for permittin’ 
me to admire that awfully fetchin’ thing you’ve 
got on. Now, don’t you worry, Mr. Appledore. 
I’m thinkin’ the best thing I can do is to trundle 
the old lady down to my mother and take her out 
of your way, otherwise you might be findin’ your 
Christian feelin’s gettin’ the better of you some 





50 


WHOSE BODY? 


1 ■—* 

fine day, and there’s nothin’ like Christian feelin’s 
for upsettin’ a man’s domestic comfort. Good¬ 
night, sir—good-night, dear lady—it’s simply 
rippin’ of you to let me drop in like this.” 

“Well!” said Mrs. Appledore, as the door 
closed behind him. 

And— 


“I thank the goodness and the grace 
That on my birth have smiled,” 

said Lord Peter, “and taught me to be bestially 
impertinent when I choose. Cat!” 

Two a. m. saw Lord Peter Wimsey arrive in 
a friend’s car at the Dower House, Denver 
Castle, in company with a deaf and aged lady 
and an antique portmanteau. 

* * # 

“It’s very nice to see you, dear,” said the Dow¬ 
ager Duchess, placidly. She was a small, plump 
woman, with perfectly white hair and exquisite 
hands. In feature she was as unlike her second 
son as she was like him in character; her black 
eyes twinkled cheerfully, and her manners and 
movements were marked with a neat and rapid 
decision. She wore a charming wrap from 
Liberty’s, and sat watching Lord Peter eat cold 
beef and cheese as though his arrival in such in¬ 
congruous circumstances and company were the 



WHOSE BODY? 


51 

most ordinary event possible, which with him, 
indeed, it was. 

‘‘Have you got the old lady to bed?” asked 
Lord Peter. 

“Oh, yes, dear. Such a striking old person, isn’t 
she? And very courageous. She tells me she 
has never been in a motor-car before. But she 
thinks you a very nice lad, dear—that careful of 
her, you remind her of her own son. Poor little 
Mr. Thipps—whatever made your friend the in¬ 
spector think he could have murdered anybody?” 

“My friend the inspector—no, no more, thank 
you. Mother—is determined to prove that the in¬ 
trusive person in Thipps’s bath is Sir Reuben 
Levy, who disappeared mysteriously from his 
house last night. His line of reasoning is: We’ve 
lost a middle-aged gentleman without any clothes 
on in Park Lane; we’ve found a middle-aged 
gentleman without any clothes on in Battersea. 
Therefore they’re one and the same person, 
Q.E.D., and put little Thipps in quod.” 

“You’re very elliptical, dear,” said the Duchess, 
mildly. “Why should Mr. Thipps be arrested 
even if they are the same?” 

“Sugg must arrest somebody,” said Lord 
Peter, “but there is one odd little bit of evidence 
come out which goes a long way to support 
Sugg’s theory, only that I know it to be no go 
by the evidence of my own eyes. Last night at 
* about 9:15 a young woman was strollin’ up the 




WHOSE BODY? 


52 


Battersea Park Road for purposes best known to 
herself, when she saw a gentleman in a fur coat 
and top-hat saunterin’ along under an umbrella, 
lookin’ at the names of all the streets. He looked 
a bit out of place, so, not bein’ a shy girl, you 
see, she walked up to him, and said, ‘Good-eve¬ 
ning.’ ‘Can you tell me, please,’ says the mysteri¬ 
ous stranger, ‘whether this street leads into 
Prince of Wales Road?’ She said it did, and 
further asked him in a jocular manner what he 
was doing with himself and all the rest of it, only 
she wasn’t altogether so explicit about that part 
of the conversation, because she was unburdenin’ 
her heart to Sugg, d’you see, and he’s paid by a 
grateful country to have very pure, high-minded 
ideals, what? Anyway, the old boy said he 
couldn’t attend to her just then as he had 
an appointment. ‘I’ve got to go and see a 
man, my dear,’ was how she said he put it, and 
he walked on up Alexandra Avenue towards 
Prince of Wales Road. She was starin’ after 
him, still rather surprised, when she was joined 
by a friend of hers, who said, ‘It’s no good wast¬ 
ing your time with him—that’s Levy—I knew 
him when I lived in the West End, and the girls 
used to call him Pea-green Incorruptible’— 
friend’s name suppressed, owing to implications 
of story, but girl vouches for what was said. She 
thought no more about it till the milkman 
brought news this morning of the excitement at 






WHOSE BODY? 


53 


5Queen Caroline Mansions; then she went round, 
though not likin’ the police as a rule, and asked 
the man there whether the dead gentleman had a 
beard and glasses. Told he had glasses hut no 
heard, she incautiously said: ‘Oh, then, it isn’t 
him,’ and the man said, ‘Isn’t who?’ and collared 
her. That’s her story. Sugg’s delighted, of 
course, and quodded Thipps on the strength of 
it.” 

“Dear me,” said the Duchess, “I hope the poor 
girl won’t get into trouble.” 

“Shouldn’t think so,” said Lord Peter. 
“Thipps is the one that’s going to get it in the 
neck. Besides, he’s done a silly thing. I got that 
out of Sugg, too, though he was sittin’ tight on 
the information. Seems Thipps got into a confu¬ 
sion about the train he took back from Manches¬ 
ter. Said first he got home at 10: 30. Then they 
pumped Gladys Horrocks, who let out he wasn’t 
back till after 11:45. Then Thipps, bein’ asked 
to explain the discrepancy,stammers and bungles 
and says, first that he missed the train. Then 
Sugg makes enquiries at St. Pancras and discov¬ 
ers that he left a bag in the cloakroom there at 
ten. Thipps, again asked to explain, stammers 
worse an’ says he walked about for a few hours— 
met a friend—can’t say who—didn’t meet a 
friend—can’t say what he did with his time— 
can’t explain why he didn’t go back for his bag— 
can’t say what time he did get in—can’t explain 






54 


WHOSE BODY? 


how he got a bruise on his forehead. In fact, 
can’t explain himself at all. Gladys Horrocks 
interrogated again. Says, this time, Thipps came 
in at 10. 30. Then admits she didn’t hear him 
come in. Can’t say why she didn’t hear him come 
in. Can’t say why she said first of all that she 
did hear him. Bursts into tears. Contradicts 
herself. Everybody’s suspicion roused. Quod 
'em both.” 

“As you put it, dear,” said the Duchess, “it 
all sounds very confusing, and not quite respect¬ 
able. Poor little Mr. Thipps would be terribly 
upset by anything that wasn’t respectable.” 

“I wonder what he did with himself,” said 
Lord Peter thoughtfully. “I really don’t think 
he was committing a murder. Besides, I believe 
the fellow has been dead a day or two, though 
it don’t do to build too much on doctors’ evi¬ 
dence. It’s an entertainin’ little problem.” 

“Very curious, dear. But so sad about poor 
Sir Beuben. I must write a few lines to Lady 
Levy; I used to know her quite well, you know, 
dear, down in Hampshire, when she was a girl. 
Christine Ford, she was then, and I remember so 
well the dreadful trouble there was about her 
marrying a Jew. That was before he made his 
money, of course, in that oil business out in 
America. The family wanted her to marry Julian 
Freke, who did so well afterwards and was con¬ 
nected with the family, but she fell in love with 



WHOSE BODY? 


55 


this Mr. Levy and eloped with him. He was very 
handsome, then, you know, dear, in a foreign- 
looking way, but he hadn’t any means, and the 
Fords didn’t like his religion. Of course we’re 
all Jews nowadays and they wouldn’t have 
minded so much if he’d pretended to be something 
else, like that Mr. Simons we met at Mrs. Por- 
chester’s, who always tells everybody that he got 
his nose in Italy at the Renaissance, and claims to 
be descended somehow or other from La Bella 
Simonetta—so foolish, you know, dear—as if 
anybody believed it; and I’m sure some Jews are 
very good people, and personally I’d much rather 
they believed something, though of course it must 
be very inconvenient, what with not working on 
Saturdays and circumcising the poor little babies 
and everything depending on the new moon and 
that funny kind of meat they have with such a 
slang-sounding name, and never being able to 
have bacon for breakfast. Still, there it was, and 
it was much better for the girl to marry him if 
she was really fond of him, though I believe 
young Freke was really devoted to her, and 
they’re still great friends. Not that there was 
ever a real engagement, only a sort of under¬ 
standing with her father, but he’s never married, 
you know, and lives all by himself in* that big 
house next to the hospital, though he’s very rich 
and distinguished now, and I know ever so many 
people have tried to get hold of him—there was 




56 


WHOSE BODY? 


Lady Mainwaring wanted him for that eldest 
girl of hers, though I remember saying at the 
time it was no use expecting a surgeon to be 
taken in by a figure that was all padding—they 
have so many opportunities of judging, you 
know, dear.” 

“Lady Levy seems to have had the knack of 
makin’ people devoted to her,” said Peter. 
“Look at the pea-green incorruptible Levy.” 

“That’s quite true, dear; she was a most de¬ 
lightful girl, and they say her daughter is just 
like her. I rather lost sight of them when she 
married, and you know your father didn’t care 
much about business people, but I know every¬ 
body always said they were a model couple. In 
fact it was a proverb that Sir Reuben was as well 
loved at home as he was hated abroad. I don’t 
mean in foreign countries, you know, dear—just 
the proverbial way of putting things—like ‘a saint 
abroad and a devil at home’—only the other way 
on, reminding one of the Pilgrim's Progress ” 

“Yes,” said Peter, “I daresay the old man 
made one or two enemies.” 

“Dozens, dear—such a dreadful place, the City, 
isn’t it? Everybody Ishmaels together—though 
I don’t suppose Sir Reuben would like to be 
called that, would he? Doesn’t it mean illegiti¬ 
mate, or not a proper Jew, anyway? I always 
did get confused with those Old Testament char¬ 
acters.” 





WHOSE BODY? 


57 


Lord Peter laughed and yawned. 

“I think I’ll turn in for an hour or two,” he 
said. “I must be back in town at eight—Parker’s 
coming to breakfast.” 

The Duchess looked at the clock, which marked 
five minutes to three. 

“I’ll send up your breakfast at half past six, 
dear,” she said. “I hope you’ll find everything 
all right. I told them just to slip a hot-water 
bottle in; those linen sheets are so chilly; you 
can put it out if it’s in your way.” 




$ 






IV 


“-So there it is, Parker,” said Lord Peter, 

pushing his coffee-cup aside and lighting his 
after-breakfast pipe; “you may find it leads you 
to something, though it don’t seem to get me 
any further with my bathroom problem. Did 
you do anything more at that after I left?” 

“No; but I’ve been on the roof this morning.” 

“The deuce you have—what an energetic devil 
you are! I say, Parker, I think this co-operative 
scheme is an uncommonly good one. It’s much 
easier to work on someone else’s job than one’s 
own—gives one that delightful feelin’ of inter¬ 
ferin’ and bossin’ about, combined with the glori¬ 
ous sensation that another fellow is takin’ all one’s 
own work off one’s hands. You scratch my back 
and I’ll scratch yours, what? Did you find any¬ 
thing?” 

“Not very much. I looked for any footmarks 
of course, but naturally, with all this rain, there 
wasn’t a sign. Of course, if this were a detective 
story, there’d have been a convenient shower 
exactly an hour before the crime and a beautiful 
set of marks which could only have come there 
between two and three in the morning, but this 
being real life in a London November, you might 

59 



60 


WHOSE BODY? 


as well expect footprints in Niagara. I searched 
the roofs right along—and came to the jolly con¬ 
clusion that any person in any blessed flat in the 
blessed row might have done it. All the stair¬ 
cases open on to the roof and the leads are quite 
flat; you can walk along as easy as along Shaftes¬ 
bury Avenue. Still, I’ve got some evidence that 
the body did walk along there.” 

“What’s that?” 

Parker brought out his pocketbook and ex¬ 
tracted a few shreds of material, which he laid 
before his friend. 

“One was caught in the gutter just above 
Thipps’s bathroom window, another in a crack 
of the stone parapet just over it, and the rest 
came from the chimney-stack behind, where they 
had caught in an iron stanchion. What do you 
make of them?” 

Lord Peter scrutinized them very carefully 
through his lens. 

“Interesting,” he said, “damned interesting. 
Have you developed those plates, Bunter?” he 
added, as that discreet assistant came in with the 
post. 

“Yes, my lord.” 

“Caught anything?” 

“I don’t know whether to call it anything or 
not, my lord,” said Bunter, dubiously. “I’ll bring 
the prints in.” 

“Do,” said Wimsey. “Hallo! here’s our ad- 






WHOSE BODY? 


61 


vertisement about the gold chain in the Times — 
very nice it looks: ‘Write, ’phone or call 110, 
Piccadilly/ Perhaps it would have been safer to 
put a box number, though I always think that 
the franker you are with people, the more you’re 
likely to deceive ’em; so unused is the modern 
world to the open hand and the guileless heart, 
what?” 

“But you don’t think the fellow who left that 
chain on the body is going to give himself away 
by coming here and enquiring about it?” 

“I don’t, fathead,” said Lord Peter, with the 
easy politeness of the real aristocracy, “that’s 
why I’ve tried to get hold of the jeweler who 
originally sold the chain. See?” He pointed to 
the paragraph. “It’s not an old chain—hardly 
worn at all. Oh, thanks, Bunter. Now, see here e 
Parker, these are the finger-marks you noticed 
yesterday on the window-sash and on the far edge 
of the bath. I’d overlooked them; I give you full 
credit for the discovery, I crawl, I grovel, my 
name is Watson, and you need not say what you 
were just going to say, because I admit it all. 
Now we shall- Hullo, hullo, hullo!” 

The three men stared at the photographs. 

“The criminal,” said Lord Peter, bitterly, 
“climbed over the roofs in the wet and not un¬ 
naturally got soot on his fingers. He arranged 
the body in the bath, and wiped away all traces 
of himself except two, which he obligingly left 






62 


WHOSE BODY? 


to show us how to do our job. We learn from a 
smudge on the floor that he wore india rubber 
boots, and from this admirable set of fingerprints 
on the edge of the bath that he had the usual 
number of fingers and wore rubber gloves. That’s 
the kind of man he is. Take the fool away, 
gentlemen.” 

He put the prints aside, and returned to an 
examination of the shreds of material in his hand. 
Suddenly he whistled softly. 

“Do you make anything of these, Parker?” 

“They seemed to me to be ravellings of some 
coarse cotton stuff—a sheet, perhaps, or an im¬ 
provised rope.” 

“Yes,” said Lord Peter—“yes. It may be a 
mistake—it may be our mistake. I wonder. 
Tell me, d’you think these tiny threads are long 
enough and strong enough to hang a man?” 

He was silent, his long eyes narrowing info 
slits behind the smoke of his pipe. 

“What do you suggest doing this morning?” 
asked Parker. 

“Well,” said Lord Peter, “it seems to me it’s 
about time I took a hand in your job. Let’s go 
round to Park Lane and see what larks Sir Reu¬ 
ben Levy was up to in bed last night.” 

* * * 

“And now, Mrs. Pemming, if you would be 







WHOSE BODY? 


63 


so kind as give me a blanket,” said Mr. Bunter, 
coming down into the kitchen, “and permit of 
me hanging a sheet across the lower part of this 
window, and drawing the screen across here, so 
—so as to shut off any reflections, if you under¬ 
stand me, we’ll get to work.” 

Sir Reuben Levy’s cook, with her eye upon 
Mr. Bunter’s gentlemanly and well-tailored ap¬ 
pearance, hastened to produce what was neces¬ 
sary. Her visitor placed on the table a basket, 
containing a water-bottle, a silver-backed hair¬ 
brush, a pair of boots, a small roll of linoleum, 
and the “Letters of a Self-made Merchant to His 
Son,” bound in polished morocco. He drew an 
umbrella from beneath his arm and added it to 
the collection. He then advanced a ponderous 
photographic machine and set it up in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the kitchen range; then, spreading 
a newspaper over the fair, scrubbed surface of 
the table, he began to roll up his sleeves and in¬ 
sinuate himself into a pair of surgical gloves. 
Sir Reuben Levy’s valet, entering at the moment 
and finding him thus engaged, put aside the 
kitchenmaid, who was staring from a front-row 
position, and inspected the apparatus critically. 
Mr. Bunter nodded brightly to him, and uncorked 
a small bottle of grey powder. 

“Odd sort of fish, your employer, isn’t he?” 
said the valet, carelessly. 

“Very singular, indeed,” said Mr. Bunter. 





64 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Now, my dear,” he added, ingratiatingly, to the 
parlourmaid, “I wonder if you’d just pour a little 
of this grey powder over the edge of the bottle 
while I’m holding it—and the same with this boot 
—here, at the top—thank you, Miss—what is 
your name ? Price ? Oh, but you’ve got another 
name besides Price, haven’t you? Mabel, eh? 
That’s a name I’m uncommonly partial to—that’s 
very nicely done, you’ve a steady hand, Miss 
Mabel—see that? That’s the finger marks— 
three there, and two here, and smudged over in 
both places. No, don’t you touch ’em, my dear, 
or you’ll rub the bloom off. We’ll stand ’em up 
here till they’re ready to have their portraits 
taken. Now then, let’s take the hairbrush next. 
Perhaps, Mrs. Pemming, you’d like to lift him 
up very carefully by the bristles.” 

“By the bristles, Mr. Bunter?” 

“If you please, Mrs. Pemming—and lay him 
here. Now, Miss Mabel, another little exhibition 
of your skill, if you please. No—we’ll try lamp¬ 
black this time. Perfect. Couldn’t have done it 
better myself. Ah! there’s a beautiful set. No 
smudges this time. That’ll interest his lordship. 
Now the little book—no, I’ll pick that up myself 
—with these gloves, you see, and by the edges— 
I’m a careful criminal, Mrs. Pemming, I don’t 
want to leave any traces. Dust the cover all 
over, Miss Mabel; now this side—that’s the way 
to do it. Lots of prints and no smudges. All 






WHOSE BODY? 


65 


according to plan. Oh, please, Mr. Graves, you 
mustn’t touch it—it’s as much as my place is 
worth to have it touched.” 

“D’you have to do much of this sort of thing?” 
enquired Mr. Graves, from a superior standpoint. 

“Any amount,” replied Mr. Bunter, with a 
groan calculated to appeal to Mr. Graves’s heart 
and unlock his confidence. “If you’d kindly hold 
one end'of this* bit of linoleum, Mrs. Pemming, 
I’ll hold up this end while Miss Mabel oper¬ 
ates. Yes, Mr. Graves, it’s a hard life, valeting by 
day and developing by night—morning tea at any 
time from 6:80 to 11, and criminal investigation 
at all hours. It’s wonderful, the ideas these rich 
men with nothing to do get into their heads.” 

“I wonder you stand it,” said Mr. Graves 
“Now there’s none of that here. A quiet, orderly, 
domestic fife, Mr. Bunter, has much to be said for 
it. Meals at regular hours; decent, respectable 
families to dinner—none of your painted women 
—and no valeting at night, there’s much to be 
said for it. I don’t hold with Hebrews as a rule, 
Mr. Bunter, and of course I understand that you 
may find it to your advantage to be in a titled 
family, but there’s less thought of that these days, 
and I will say, for a self-made man, ne one could 
call Sir Beuben vulgar, and my lady at any rate 
is county—Miss Ford, she was, one of the Hamp¬ 
shire Fords, and both of them always most con¬ 
siderate.” 




66 


WHOSE BODY? 


“I agree with you, Mr. Graves—his lordship 
and me have never held with being narrow¬ 
minded—why, yes, my dear, of course it’s a foot¬ 
mark, this is the washstand linoleum. A good 
Jew can be a good man, that’s what I’ve always 
said. And regular hours and considerate habits 
have a great deal to recommend them. Very 
simple in his tastes, now, Sir Reuben, isn’t he? 
for such a rich man, I mean.” 

“Very simple indeed,” said the cook, “the 
meals he and her ladyship have when they’re by 
themselves with Miss Rachel—well, there now— 
if it wasn’t for the dinners, which is always good 
when there’s company, I’d be wastin’ my talents 
and education here, if you understand me, Mr. 
Bunter.” 

Mr. Bunter added the handle of the umbrella/ 
to his collection, and began to pin a sheet across 
the window, aided by the housemaid. 

“Admirable,” said he. “Now, if I might have 
this blanket on the table and another on a towel- 
horse or something of that kind by way of a 
background—you’re very kind, Mrs. Pemming. 
. . . Ah! I wish his lordship never wanted valet¬ 
ing at night. Many’s the time I’ve sat up till 
three and four, and up again to call him early to 
go off Sherlocking at the other end of the coun¬ 
try. And the mud he gets on his clothes and 
his boots!” 

“I’m sure it’s a shame, Mr. Bunter,” said Mrs. 



WHOSE BODY? 


67 


Pemming, warmly. “Low, I calls it. In my 
opinion, police-work ain’t no fit occupation for a 
gentleman, let alone a lordship.” 

“Everything made so difficult, too,” said Mr. 
Bunter, nobly sacrificing his employer’s charac¬ 
ter and hi. own feelings in a good cause; “boots 
chucked into a corner, clothes hung up on the 
floor, as they say-” 

“That’s often the case with these men as are 
born with a silver spoon in their mouths,” said 
Mr. Graves. “Now, Sir Reuben, he’s never lost 
his good old-fashioned habits. Clothes folded up 
neat, boots put out in his dressing-room, so as a 
man could get them in the morning, everything 
made easy.” 

“He forgot them the night before last, though.” 

“The clothes, not the boots. Always thought¬ 
ful for others, is Sir Reuben. Ah! I hope 
nothing’s happened to him.” 

“Indeed, no, poor gentleman,” chimed in the 
cook, “and as for what they’re sayin’, that he’d 
’ave gone out surrepshous-like to do something he 
didn’t ought, well, I’d never believe it of him, 
Mr. Bunter not if I was to take my dying oath 
upon it.” , 

“Ah!” said Mr. Bunter, adjusting his arc- 
lamps and connecting them with the nearest elec¬ 
tric light, “and that’s more than most of us could 

say of them as pays us.” 

* * * 





68 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Five foot ten,” said Lord Peter, “and not 
an inch more.” He peered dubiously at the de¬ 
pression in the bed clothes, and measured it a 
second time with the gentleman-scout’s vade- 
mecum. Parker entered this particular in a neat 
pocketbook. 

“I suppose,” he said, “a six-foot-two man might 
leave a five-foot-ten depression if he curled him¬ 
self up.” 

“Have you any Scotch blood in you, Parker?” 
enquired his colleague, bitterly. 

fc j\ T ot that I know of,” replied Parker. “Why?” 

“Because of all the cautious, ungenerous, de¬ 
liberate and cold-blooded devils I know,” said 
Lord Peter, “you are the most cautious, ungen¬ 
erous, deliberate and cold-blooded. Here am I, 
sweating my brains out to introduce a really sen¬ 
sational incident into your dull and disreputable 
little police investigation, and you refuse to show 
a single spark of enthusiasm.” 

“Well, it’s no good jumping at conclusions.” 

“Jump? You don’t even crawl distantly with¬ 
in sight of a conclusion. I believe if you caught 
the cat with her head in the cream-jug you’d say 
it was conceivable that the jug was empty when 
she got there.” 

“Well, it would be conceivable, wouldn’t it?” 

“Curse you,” said Lord Peter. He screwed 
his monocle into Jhis eye, and bent over the pil¬ 
low, breathing hard and tightly through his nose. 



WHOSE BODY? 


69 


“Here, give me the tweezers,” he said present¬ 
ly, “good heavens, man, don’t blow like that, you 
might be a whale.” He nipped up an almost in¬ 
visible object from the linen. 

“What is it?” asked Parker. 

It’s a hair,” said Wimsey grimly, his hard 
eyes growing harder. “Let’s go and look at 
Levy’s hats, shall we? And you might just ring 
for that fellow with the churchyard name, do you 
mind?” 

Mr. Graves, when summoned, found Lord 
Peter Wimsey squatting on the floor of the dress¬ 
ing-room before a row of hats arranged upside- 
down before him. 

“Here you are,” said that nobleman cheerfully, 
“now, Graves, this is a guessin’ competition—a 
sort of three-hat trick, to mix metaphors. Here 
are nine hats, including three top-hats. Do you 
identify all these hats as belonging to Sir Reuben 
Levy? You do? Very good. Now I have three 
guesses as to which hat he wore the night he dis¬ 
appeared, and if I guess right, I win; if I don’t, 
you win. See? Ready? Go. I suppose you 
know the answer yourself, by the way.” 

“Do I understand your lordship to be asking 
which hat Sir Reuben wore when he went out on 
Monday night, your lordship?” 

“No, you don’t understand a bit,” said Lord 
Peter. “I’m asking if you know—don’t tell me, 
I’m going to guess.” 




70 


WHOSE BODY? 


“I do know, your lordship,” said Mr. Graves, 
reprovingly. 

“Well,” said Lord Peter, “as he was dinin’ at 
the Ritz he wore a topper. Here are three top¬ 
pers. In three guesses I’d be bound to hit the 
right one, wouldn’t I? That don’t seem very 
sportin’. I’ll take one guess. It was this one.” 

He indicated the hat next the window. 

“Am I right, Graves—have I got the prize?” 

“That is the hat in question, my lord,” said Mr. 
Graves, without excitement. 

“Thanks,” said Lord Peter, “that’s all I 
wanted to know. Ask Bunter to step up, would 
you?” 

Mr. Bunter stepped up with an aggrieved air, 
and his usually smooth hair ruffled by the focus¬ 
sing cloth. 

“Oh, there you are, Bunter,” said Lord Peter; 
“look here-” 

“Here I am, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, with 
respectful reproach, “but if you’ll excuse me say¬ 
ing so, downstairs is where I ought to be, with 
all those young women about—they’ll be finger¬ 
ing the evidence, my lord.” 

“I cry you mercy,” said Lord Peter, “but I’ve 
quarrelled hopelessly with Mr. Parker and dis¬ 
tracted the estimable Graves, and I want you to 
tell me what finger-prints you have found. I 
shan’t be happy till I get it, so don’t be harsh with 
me, Bunter.” 






WHOSE BODY? 


71 


“Well, my lord, your lordship understands I 
haven’t photographed them yet, but I won’t deny 
that their appearance is interesting, my lord. 
The little book off the night table, my lord, has 
only the marks of one set of fingers—there’s a 
little scar on the right thumb which makes them 
easy recognized. The hairbrush, too, my lord, has 
only the same set of marks. The umbrella, the 
toothglass and the boots all have two sets: the 
hand with the scarred thumb, which I take to be 
Sir Reuben’s, my lord, and a set of smudges 
superimposed upon them, if I may put it that 
way, my lord, which may or may not be the same 
hand in rubber gloves. I could tell you better 
when I’ve got the photographs made, to measure 
them, my lord. The linoleum in front of the 
washstand is very gratifying indeed, my lord, if 
you will excuse my mentioning it. Besides the 
marks of Sir Reuben’s boots which your lord- 
ship pointed out, there’s the print of a man’s 
naked foot—a much smaller one, my lord, not 
much more than a ten-inch sock, I should say if 
you asked me.” 

Lord Peter’s face became irradiated with al¬ 
most a dim, religious light. 

“A mistake,” he breathed, “a mistake, a little 
one, but he can’t afford it. When was the lino¬ 
leum washed last, Bunter?” 

“Monday morning, my lord. The housemaid 
did it and remembered to mention it. Only re- 




74 


WHOSE BODY? 


soled shoes. In a few minutes he is at Hyde 
Park Corner. After that-” 

He paused, and added: 

“He did all that, and unless he had nothing at 
stake, he had everything at stake. Either Sir 
Beuben Levy has been spirited away for some 
silly practical joke, or the man with the auburn 
hair has the guilt of murder upon his soul. ,, 

“Dear me!” ejaculated the detective, “you’re 
very dramatic about it.” 

Lord Peter passed his hand rather wearily over 
his hair. 

“My true friend,” he murmured, in a voice 
surcharged with emotion, “you recall me to the 
nursery rhymes of my youth—the sacred duty of 
flippancy: 

‘There was an old man of Whitehaven 
Who danced a quadrille with a raven, 

But they said: It’s absurd 
To encourage that bird— 

So they smashed that old man of Whitehaven. ' 

# 

That’s the correct attitude, Parker. Here’s a 
poor old buffer spirited away—such a joke—and 
I don’t believe he’d hurt a fly himself—that 
makes it funnier. D’you know, Parker, I don’t 
care frightfully about this case after all.” 

“Which, this or yours?” 

“Both. I say, Parker, shall we go quietly 
home and have lunch and go to the Coliseum?” 





WHOSE BODY? 


75 


“You can if you like/' replied the detective; 
“but you forget I do this for my bread and but¬ 
ter.” 

“And I haven’t even that excuse,” said Lord 
Peter; “well, what’s the next move? What would 
you do in my case?” 

“I’d do some good, hard grind,” said Parker. 
“I’d distrust every bit of work Sugg ever did, 
and I’d get the family history of every tenant 
of every flat in Queen Caroline Mansions. I’d 
examine all their boxrooms and rooftraps, and I 
would inveigle them into conversations and sud¬ 
denly bring in the words ‘body’ and ‘pince-nez,’ 
and see if they wriggled, like those modem 
psycho-what’s-his-names.” 

“You would, would you?” said Lord Peter 
with a grin. “Well, we’ve exchanged cases, you 
know, so just you toddle off and do it. I’m go¬ 
ing to have a jolly time at Wyndham’s.” 

Parker made a grimace. 

“Well,” he said, “I don’t suppose you’d ever 
do it, so I’d better. You’ll never become a pro¬ 
fessional till you learn to do a little work, Wim- 
sey. How about lunch?” 

“I’m invited out,” said Lord Peter, magnifi¬ 
cently. “I’ll run round and change at the club. 
Can’t feed with Freddy Arbuthnot in these bags; 
Bunter!” 

“Yes, my lord.” 

“Pack up if you’re ready, and come round and 




76 


WHOSE BODY? 


wash my face and hands for me at the club.” 

“Work here for another two hours, my lord. 
Can’t do with less than thirty minutes’ exposure. 
The current’s none too strong.” 

“You see how I’m bullied by my own man, 
Parker? Well, I must bear it, I suppose. 
Ta-ta!” 

He whistled his way downstairs. 

The conscientious Mr. Parker, with a groan, 
settled down to a systematic search through Sir 
Reuben Levy’s papers, with the assistance of a 
plate of ham sandwiches and a bottle of Bass. 

Lord Peter and the Honourable Freddy Ar- 
buthnot, looking together like an advertisement 
for gents’ trouserings, strolled into the dining¬ 
room at Wyndham’s. 

“Haven’t seen you for an age,” said the Hon¬ 
ourable Freddy, “what have you been doin’ with 
yourself?” 

“Oh, foolin’ about,” said Lord Peter, lan¬ 
guidly. 

“Thick or clear, sir?” enquired the waiter of 
the Honourable Freddy. 

“Which’ll you have, Wimsey?” said that gen¬ 
tleman, transferring the burden of selection to 
his guest, “they’re both equally poisonous.” 

“Well, dear’s less trouble to lick out of the 
spoon,” said Lord Peter. 

“Clear,” said the Honourable Freddy. 




WHOSE BODY? 


77 


“Consomme Polonais,” agreed the waiter. 
“Very nice, sir.” 

Conversation languished until the Honourable 
Freddy found a bone in the filleted sole, and sent 
for the head waiter to explain its presence. When 
this matter had been adjusted Lord Peter found 
energy to say: 

“Sorry to hear about your gov’nor, old man.” 

“Yes, poor old buffer,” said the Honourable 
Freddy; “they say he can’t last long now. What? 
Oh! the Montrachet ’08. There’s nothing fit to 
drink in this place,” he added gloomily. 

After this deliberate insult to a noble vintage 
there was a further pause, till Lord Peter said: 
“How’s ’Change?” 

“Rotten,” said the Honourable Freddy. 

He helped himself gloomily to salmis of game. 

“Can I do anything?” asked Lord Peter. 

“Oh, no, thanks—very decent of you, but it’ll 
pan out all right in time.” 

“This isn’t a bad salmis,” said Lord Peter. 

“I’ve eaten worse,” admitted his friend. 

“What about those Argentines?” enquired 
Lord Peter. “Here, waiter, there’s a bit of cork 
in my glass.” 

“Cork?” cried the Honourable Freddy, with 
something approaching animation; “you’ll hear 
about this, waiter. It’s an amazing thing a fel¬ 
low who’s paid to do the job can’t manage to take 
ia cork out of a bottle. What you say? Argen- 




78 


WHOSE BODY? 


tines? Gone all to hell. Old Levy bunkin’ off 
like that’s knocked the bottom out of the mar¬ 
ket.” 

“You don’t say so,” said Lord Peter; “what 
d’you suppose has happened to the old man?” 

“Cursed if I know,” said the Honourable 
Freddy; “knocked on the head by the bears, I 
should think.” 

“P’r’aps he’s gone off on his own,” suggested 
Lord Peter. “Double life, you know. Giddy old 
blighters, some of these City men.” 

“Oh, no,” said the Honourable Freddy, faintly 
roused; “no, hang it all, Wimsey, I wouldn’t 
care to say that. He’s a decent old domestic 
bird, and his daughter’s a charmin’ girl. Besides, 
he’s straight enough—he’d do you down fast 
enough, but he wouldn’t let you down. Old An¬ 
derson is badly cut up about it.” 

“Who’s Anderson?” 

“Chap with property out there. He belongs 
here. He was goin’ to meet Levy on Tuesday. 
He’s afraid those railway people will get in now, 
and then it’ll be all U. P.” 

“Who’s runnin* the railway people over here?” 
enquired Lord Peter. 

“Yankee blighter, John P. Milligan. He’s 
got an option, or says he has. You can’t trust 
these brutes.” 

“Can’t Anderson hold on?” 

“Anderson isn’t Levy. Hasn’t got the 





WHOSE BODY? 


79 


shekels. Besides, he’s only one. Levy covers the 
ground—he could boycott Milligan’s beastly rail¬ 
way if he liked. That’s where he’s got the pull* 
ycru see.” 

“B’lieve I met the Milligan man somewhere,” 
said Lord Peter, thoughtfully; “ain’t he a hulk¬ 
ing brute with black hair and a beard?” 

“You’re thinkin’ of somebody else,” said the 
Honourable Freddy. “Milligan don’t stand any 
higher than I do, unless you call five-feet-ten 
hulking—and he’s bald, anyway.” 

Lord Peter considered this over the Gorgon¬ 
zola. Then he said: 

“Didn’t know Levy had a charmin’ daugh¬ 
ter.” 

“Oh, yes,” said the Honourable Freddy, with 
an elaborate detachment. “Met her and Mamma 
last year abroad. That’s how I got to know the 
old man. He’s been very decent. Let me into 
this Argentine business on the ground floor* 
don’t you know?” 

“Well,” said Lord Peter, “you might do worse. 
Money’s money, ain’t it? And Lady Levy is quite 
a redeemin’ point. At least, my mother knew her 
people.” 

“Oh, all right,” said the Honourable 

Freddy, “and the old man’s nothing to be 
ashamed of nowadays. He’s self-made, of course, 
but he don’t pretend to be anything else. No 
side. Toddles off to business on a 96 ’bus every 




80 


WHOSE BODY? 


morning. ‘Can’t make up my mind to taxis, my 
boy,’ he says. ‘I had to look at every halfpenny 
when I was a young man, and I can’t get out of 
the way of it now.’ Though, if he’s takin’ his 
family out, nothing’s too good. Rachel—that’s 
the girl—always laughs at the old man’s little 
economies.” 

“I suppose they’ve sent for Lady Levy,” said 
Lord Peter. 

“I suppose so,” agreed the other. “I’d better 
pop round and express sympathy or somethin’, 
what? Wouldn’t look well not to, d’you think? 
But it’s deuced awkward. What am I to say?” 

“I don’t think it matters much what you say,” 
said Lord Peter, helpfully. “I should ask if you 
can do anything.” 

“Thanks,” said the lover, “I will. Energetic 
young man. Count on me. Always at your 
sendee. Ring me up any time of the day or 
night. That’s the line to take, don’t you think?” 

“That’s the idea,” said Lord Peter, 

* * * 

Mr. John P. Milligan, the London representa¬ 
tive of the great Milligan railroad and shipping 
company, was dictating code cables to his secre¬ 
tary in an office in Lombard Street, when a card 
was brought up to him, bearing the simple 
legend: 




WHOSE BODY? 


81 


Lord Peter Wimsey 

Marlborough Club 

Mr. Milligan was annoyed at the interruption, 
but, like many of his nation, if he had a weak 
point, it was the British aristocracy. He post¬ 
poned for a few minutes the elimination from 
the map of a modest but promising farm, and 
directed that the visitor should be shown up. 

“Good-afternoon,” said that nobleman, am¬ 
bling genially in, “it’s most uncommonly good of 
you to let me come round wastin’ your time like 
this. I’ll try not to be too long about it, though 
I’m not awfully good at cornin’ to the point. My 
brother never would let me stand for the county, 
y’know—said I wandered on so nobody’d know 
what I was talkin’ about.” 

“Pleased to meet you, Lord Wimsey,” said Mr. 
Milligan. “Won’t you take a seat?” 

“Thanks,” said Lord Peter, “but I’m not the 
Duke, you know—that’s my brother Denver. My 
name’s Peter. It’s a silly name, I always think, 
so old-world and full of homely virtue and that 
sort of thing, but my godfathers and godmothers 
in my baptism are responsible for that, I sup¬ 
pose, officially—which is rather hard on them, 
you know, as they didn’t actually choose it. But 
we always have a Peter, after the third duke, 
who betrayed five kings gomewhere about the 




82 


WHOSE BODY? 


Wars of the Roses, though come to think of it, it 
ain’t anything to be proud of. Still, one has to 
make the best of it.” 

Mr. Milligan, thus ingeniously placed at that 
disadvantage which attends ignorance, manoeu¬ 
vred for position, and offered his interrupter a 
Corona Corona. 

“Thanks, awfully,” said Lord Peter, “though 
you really mustn’t tempt me to stay here bar- 
blin’ all afternoon. By Jove, Mr. Milligan, if 
you offer people such comfortable chairs and 
cigars like these, I wonder they don’t come an’ 
live in your office.” He added mentally: “I wish 
to goodness I could get those long-toed boots off 
you. How’s a man to know the size of your feet? 
And a head like a potato. It’s enough to make 
one swear.” 

“Say now, Lord Peter,” said Mr. Milligan, 
“can I do anything for you?” 

“Well, d’you know,” said Lord Peter, “I’m 
wonderin’ if you would. It’s damned cheek to 
ask you, but fact is, it’s my mother, you know. 
Wonderful woman, but don’t realize what it 
means, demands on the time of a busy man like 
you. We don’t understand hustle over here, you 
know, Mr. Milligan.” 

“Now don’t you mention that,” said Mr. Milli¬ 
gan; “I’d be surely charmed to do anything to 
oblige the Duchess.” 

He felt a momentary qualm as to whether a 



WHOSE BODY? 


88 


duke’s mother were also a duchess, but breathed 
more freely as Lord Peter went on: 

‘‘Thanks—that‘s uncommonly good of you. 
Well, now, it’s like this. My mother—most en¬ 
ergetic, self-sacrificin’ woman, don’t you see, is 
thinkin’ of gettin’ up a sort of a charity bazaar 
down at Denver this winter, in aid of the church- 
roof, y’know. Very sad case, Mr. Milligan—fine 
old antique—early English windows and dec¬ 
orated angel roof, and all that—all tumblin’ to 
pieces, rain pourin’ in and so on—vicar catchin’ 
rheumatism at early service, owin’ to the draught 
blowin’ in over the altar—you know the sort of 
thing. They’ve got a man down startin’ on it— 
little beggar called Thipps—lives with an aged 
mother in Battersea—vulgar little beast, but 
quite good on angel roofs and things, I’m told.” 

At this point, Lord Peter watched his inter¬ 
locutor narrowly, but finding that this rigmarole 
produced in him no reaction more startling than 
polite interest tinged with faint bewilderment, he 
abandoned this line of investigation, and pro¬ 
ceeded : 

“I say, I beg your pardon, frightfully—I’m 
afraid I’m bein’ beastly long-winded. Fact is, my 
mother is gettin’ up this bazaar, and she thought 
it’d be an awfully interestin’ side-show to have 
some lectures—sort of little talks, y’know—by 
eminent business men of all nations. ‘How I did 
it’ kind of touch, y’know—‘A Drop of Oil with 




84 


WHOSE BODY? 


Mr. Rockefeller’—‘Cash and Conscience’ by 
Cadbury’s Cocoa and so on. It would interest 
people down there no end. You see, all my 
mother’s friends will be there, and we’ve none of 
us any money—not what you’d call money, I 
mean—I expect our incomes wouldn’t pay your 
telephone calls, would they ?—but we like awfully 
to hear about the people who can make money. 
Gives us a sort of uplifted feelin’, don’t you 
know. Well, anyway, I mean, my mother’d be 
frightfully pleased and grateful to you, Mr. Mil¬ 
ligan, if you’d come down and give us a few 
words as a representative American. It needn’t 
take more than ten minutes or so, y’know, be¬ 
cause the local people can’t understand much be¬ 
yond shootin’ and huntin’, and my mother’s 
crowd can’t keep their minds on anythin’ more 
than ten minutes together, but we’d really appre¬ 
ciate it very much if you’d come and stay a day 
or two and just give us a little breezy word on 
the almighty dollar.” 

“Why, yes,” said Mr. Milligan, “I’d like to, 
Lord Peter. It’s kind of the Duchess to sug¬ 
gest it. It’s a very sad thing when these fine old 
antiques begin to wear out. I’ll come with great 
pleasure. And perhaps you’d be kind enough to 
accept a little donation to the Restoration Fund.” 

This unexpected development nearly brought 
Lord Peter up all standing. To pump, by means 
of an ingenious lie, a hospitable gentleman whom 






WHOSE BODY? 


85 


you are inclined to suspect of a peculiarly ma¬ 
licious murder, and to accept from him in the 
course of the proceedings a large cheque for a 
charitable object, has something about it un¬ 
palatable to any but the hardened Secret Service 
agent. Lord Peter temporized. 

“That’s awfully decent of you,” he said. “I’m 
sure they’d be no end grateful. But you’d better 
not give it to me, you know. I might spend it, 
or lose it. I’m not very reliable, I’m afraid. The 
vicar’s the right person—the Bev. Constantine 
Throgmorton, St. John-before-the-Latin-Gate 
Vicarage, Duke’s Denver, if you like to send it 
there.” 

“I will,” said Mr. Milligan. “Will you write 
it out now for a thousand pounds. Scoot, in case 
it slips my mind later?” 

The secretary, a sandy-haired young man 
with a long chin and no eyebrows, silently did as 
he was requested. Lord Peter looked from the 
bald head of Mr. Milligan to the red head of 
tlie secretary, hardened his heart and tried again. 

“Well, I’m no end grateful to you, Mr. Milli¬ 
gan, and so’ll my mother be when I tell her. I’ll 
let you know the date of the bazaar—it’s not 
quite settled yet, and I’ve got to see some other 
business men, don’t you know. I thought of 
askin’ Lord Northcliffe to represent English 
newspapers, you know, and a friend of mine 
♦promises me a leadin’ German—very interestin’ 





84 


WHOSE BODY? 


Mr. Rockefeller’—‘Cash and Conscience’ by- 
Cadbury’s Cocoa and so on. It would interest 
people down there no end. You see, all my 
mother’s friends will be there, and we’ve none of 
us any money—not what you’d call money, I 
mean—I expect our incomes wouldn’t pay your 
telephone calls, would they ?—but we like awfully 
to hear about the people who can make money. 
Gives us a sort of uplifted feelin’, don’t you 
know. Well, anyway, I mean, my mother’d be 
frightfully pleased and grateful to you, Mr. Mil¬ 
ligan, if you’d come down and give us a few 
words as a representative American. It needn’t 
take more than ten minutes or so, y’know, be¬ 
cause the local people can’t understand much be¬ 
yond shootin’ and huntin’, and my mother’s 
crowd can’t keep their minds on anythin’ more 
than ten minutes together, but we’d really appre¬ 
ciate it very much if you’d come and stay a day 
or two and just give us a little breezy word on 
the almighty dollar.” 

“Why, yes,” said Mr. Milligan, “I’d like to, 
Lord Peter. It’s kind of the Duchess to sug¬ 
gest it. It’s a very sad thing when these fine old 
antiques begin to wear out. I’ll come with great 
pleasure. And perhaps you’d be kind enough to 
accept a little donation to the Restoration Fund.” 

This unexpected development nearly brought 
Lord Peter up all standing. To pump, by means 
of an ingenious lie, a hospitable gentleman whom 






WHOSE BODY? 


85 


you are inclined to suspect of a peculiarly ma¬ 
licious murder, and to accept from him in the 
course of the proceedings a large cheque for a 
charitable object, has something about it un¬ 
palatable to any but the hardened Secret Service 
agent. Lord Peter temporized. 

“That’s awfully decent of you,” he said. “I’m 
sure they’d be no end grateful. But you’d better 
not give it to me, you know. I might spend it, 
or lose it. I’m not very reliable, I’m afraid. The 
vicar’s the right person—the Rev. Constantine 
Throgmorton, St. John-before-the-Latin-Gate 
Vicarage, Duke’s Denver, if you like to send it 
there.” 

“I will,” said Mr. Milligan. “Will you write 
it out now for a thousand pounds, Scoot, in case 
it slips my mind later?” 

The secretary, a sandy-haired young man 
with a long chin and no eyebrows, silently did as 
he was requested. Lord Peter looked from the 
bald head of Mr. Milligan to the red head of 
the secretary, hardened his heart and tried again. 

“Well, I’m no end grateful to you, Mr. Milli¬ 
gan, and so’ll my mother be when I tell her. I’ll 
let you know the date of the bazaar—-it’s not 
quite settled yet, and I’ve got to see some other 
business men, don’t you know. I thought of 
askin’ Lord Northcliffe to represent English 
newspapers, you know, and a friend of mine 
-promises me a leadin’ German—very interestin’ 





86 


WHOSE BODY? 


if there ain’t too much feelin’ against it down in 
the country, and I’d better get Rothschild, I sup¬ 
pose, to do the Hebrew point of view. I thought 
of askin’ Levy, y’know, only he’s floated off in 
this inconvenient way.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Milligan, “that’s a very curi¬ 
ous thing, though I don’t mind saying, Lord 
Peter, that it’s a convenience to me. He had a 
cinch on* my railroad combine, but I’d nothing 
against him personally, and if he turns up after 
I’ve brought off a little deal I’ve got on, I’ll be 
happy to give him the right hand of welcome.” 

A vision passed through Lord Peter’s mind 
of Sir Reuben kept somewhere in custody till a 
financial crisis was over. This was exceedingly 
possible, and far more agreeable than his earlier 
conjecture; it also agreed better with the im- 
. pression he was forming of Mr. Milligan. 

“Well, it’s a rum go,” said Lord Peter, “but 
I daresay he had his reasons. Much better not 
enquire into people’s reasons, y’know, what? 
Specially as a police friend of mine who’s con¬ 
nected with the case says the old johnnie dyed 
his hair before he went.” 

Out of the tail of his eye, Lord Peter saw the 
xed-headed secretary add up five columns of fig¬ 
ures simultaneously and jot down the answer. 

“Dyed his hair, "did he?” said Mr. Milligan. 

“Dyed it red,” said Lord Peter. The secre¬ 
tary looked up. “Odd thing is,” continued 





WHOSE BODY? 


87 


Wimsey, “they can’t lay hands on the bottle. 
Somethin’ lishy there, don’t you think, what?” 

The secretary’s interest seemed to have evap¬ 
orated. He inserted a fresh sheet into his loose- 
leaf ledger, and carried forward a row of digits 
from the preceding page. 

“I daresay there’s nothin’ in it,” said Lord 
Peter, rising to go. “Well, it’s uncommonly good 
of you to be bothered with me like this, Mr. Mil¬ 
ligan, my mother’ll be no end pleased. She’ll 
write you about the date.” 

“I’m charmed,” said Mr. Milligan, “very 
pleased to have met you.” 

Mr. Scoot rose silently to open the door, un¬ 
coiling as he did so a portentous length of thin 
leg, hitherto hidden by the desk. With a mental 
sigh Lord Peter estimated him at six-foot-four. 

“It’s a pity I can’t put Scoot’s head on Milli¬ 
gan’s shoulders,” said Lord Peter, emerging into 
the swirl of the city, “and what will my mother 
say?” 















Mr. Parker was a bachelor, and occupied a 
Georgian but inconvenient flat at No. 12 Great 
Ormond Street, for which he paid a pound a 
week. His exertions in the cause of civilization 
were rewarded, not by the gift of diamond rings 
from empresses or munificent cheques from 
grateful Prime Ministers, but by a modest, 
though sufficient, salary, drawn from the pockets 
of the British taxpayer. He awoke, after a long 
day of arduous and inconclusive labour, to the 
smell of burnt porridge. Through his bedroom 
window, hygienically open top and bottom, a raw 
fog was rolling slowly in, and the sight of a pair 
of winter pants, flung hastily over a chair the 
previous night, fretted him with a sense of the 
sordid absurdity of the human form. The tele¬ 
phone bell rang, and he crawled wretchedly out 
of bed and into the sitting-room, where Mrs. 
Munns, who did for him by the day, was laying 
the table, sneezing as she went. 

Mr. Bunter was speaking. 

“His lordship says he’d be very glad, sir, if 
you could make it convenient to step round to 
breakfast.” 

If the odour of kidneys and bacon had been 

89 


90 


WHOSE BODY? 


wafted along the wire, Mr. Parker could not have 
experienced a more vivid sense of consolation. 

“Tell his lordship I’ll be with him in half an 
hour,” he said, thankfully, and plunging into the 
bathroom, which was also the kitchen, he in¬ 
formed Mrs. Munns, who was just making tea 
from a kettle which had gone off the boil, that 
he should be out to breakfast. 

“You can take the porridge home for the fam¬ 
ily,” he added, viciously, and flung off his dress¬ 
ing-gown with such determination that Mrs. 
Munns could only scuttle away with a snort. 

A 19 ’bus deposited him in Piccadilly only fif¬ 
teen minutes later than his rather sanguine im¬ 
pulse had prompted him to suggest, and Mr. 
Bunter served him with glorious food, incompa¬ 
rable coffee, and the Daily Mail before a blazing 
fire of wood and coal. A distant voice singing 
the “et iterum venturus est” from Bach’s Mass in 
B minor proclaimed that for the owner of the 
flat cleanliness and godliness met at least once a 
day, and presently Lord Peter roamed in, moist 
and verbena-scented, in a bathrobe cheerfully 
patterned with unnaturally variegated peacocks. 

“Mornin’, old dear,” said that gentleman; 
“beast of a day, ain’t it? Very good of you to 
trundle out in it, but I had a letter I wanted you 
to see, and I hadn’t the energy to come round to 
your place. Bunter and I’ve been makin’ a night 
of it.” 





WHOSE BODY? 


913 


“What’s the letter?” asked Parker. 

“Never talk business with your mouth full,” 
said Lord Peter, reprovingly; “have some Ox¬ 
ford marmalade—and then I’ll show you my 
Dante; they brought it round last night. What 
ought I to read this morning, Bunter?” 

“Lord Erith’s collection is going to be sold, my 
lord. There is a column about it in the Morning j 
Post . I think your lordship should look at this 
review of Sir Julian Freke’s new book on ‘The 
Physiological Bases of the Conscience’ in the 
Times Literary Supplement . Then there is a 
very singular little burglary in the Chronicle , my 
lord, and an attack on titled families in the Her - 
told —rather ill-written, if I may say so, but not 
without unconscious humour which your lordship 
will appreciate.” 

“All right, give me that and the burglary,” 
said his lordship. 

“I have looked over the other papers,” pur¬ 
sued Mr. Bunter, indicating a formidable pile, 
“and marked your lordship’s after-breakfast 
reading.” 

“Oh, pray don’t allude to it,” said Lord Peter, 
“you take my appetite away.” 

There was silence, but for the crunching of 
toast and the crackling of paper. 

“I see they adjourned the inquest,” said 
Parker presently. 

“Nothing else to do,” said Lord Peter, “but 






92 


WHOSE BODY? 


Lady Levy arrived last night, and will have to 
go and fail to identify the body this morning for 
Sugg’s benefit.” 

“Time, too,” said Mr. Parker shortly. 

Silence fell again. 

“I don’t think much of your burglary, Bun- 
ter,” said Lord Peter. “Competent, of course, 
but no imagination. I want imagination in a 
criminal. Where’s the Morning Post?” 

After a further silence. Lord Peter said: 
“You might send for the catalogue, Bunter, that 
Apollonios Rhodios* might be worth looking at. 
No, I’m damned if I’m going to stodge through 
that review, but you can stick the book on the 
library list if you like. His book on Crime was 
entertainin’ enough as far as it went, but the fel¬ 
low’s got a bee in his bonnet. Thinks God’s a 
secretion of the liver—all right once in a way, but 
there’s no need to keep on about it. There’s 
nothing you can’t prove if your outlook is only 
sufficiently limited. Look at Sugg.” 

“I beg your pardon,” said Parker, “I wasn’t 
attending. Argentines are steadying a little, I 
see.” 

“Milligan,” said Lord Peter. 

“Oil’s in a bad way. Levy’s made a difference 


^Apollonios Rhodios. Lorenzobodi Alopa. Firenze. 1496. 
(4to.) The excitement attendant on the solution of the Batter¬ 
sea Mystery did not prevent Lord Peter from securing this rare 
work before his departure for Corsica. 





WHOSE BODY? 


93 


there. That funny little boom in Peruvians that 
came on just before he disappeared has died away 
again. I wonder if he was concerned in it. D’you 
know at all?” 

“I’ll find out,” said Lord Peter, “what was 
it?” 

“Oh, an absolutely dud enterprise that hadn’t 
been heard of for years. It suddenly took a little 
lease of life last week. I happened to notice it 
because my mother got let in for a couple of hun¬ 
dred shares a long time ago. It never paid a 
dividend. Now it’s petered out again.” 

Wimsey pushed his plate aside and lit a pipe. 

“Having finished, I don’t mind doing some 
work,” he said. “How did you get on yester¬ 
day?” 

“I didn’t,” replied Parker. “I sleuthed up 
and down those flats in my own bodily shape and 
two different disguises. I was a gas-meter man 
and a collector for a Home for Lost Doggies, 
and I didn’t get a thing to go on, except a serv¬ 
ant in the top flat at the Battersea Bridge Road 
end of the row who said she thought she’d heard a 
bump on the roof one night. Asked which night, 
she couldn’t rightly say. Asked if it was Mon¬ 
day night, she thought it very likely. Asked if it 
mightn’t have been in that high wind on Satur¬ 
day night that blew my chimney-pot off, she 
couldn’t say but what it might have been. Asked 
if she was sure it was on the roof and not inside 





94. 


WHOSE BODY? 


the flat, said to be sure they did find a picture 
tumbled down next morning. Very suggestible 
girl. I saw your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Apple- 
dore, who received me coldly, but could make no 
definite complaint about Thipps except that his 
mother dropped her h’s, and that he once called 
on them uninvited, armed with a pamphlet about 
anti-vivisection. The Indian Colonel on the first 
floor was loud, but unexpectedly friendly. He 
gave me Indian curry for supper and some very 
good whisky, but he’s a sort of hermit, and all he 
could tell me was that he couldn’t stand Mrs. 
Appledore.” 

“Did you get nothing at the house?” 

“Only Levy’s private diary. I brought it away 
with me. Here it is. It doesn’t tell one much, 
though. It’s full of entries like: ‘Tom and An¬ 
nie to dinner’; and ‘My dear wife’s birthday; 
gave her an old opal ring’; ‘Mr. Arbuthnot 
dropped in to tea; he wants to marry Rachel, but 
I should like someone steadier for my treasure.’ 
Still, I thought it would show who came to the 
house and so on. He evidently wrote it up at 
night. There’s no entry for Monday.” 

“I expect it’ll be useful,” said Lord Peter, 
turning over the pages. “Poor old buffer. I say, 
I’m not so certain now he was done away with.” 

He detailed to Mr. Parker his day’s work. 

“Arbuthnot?” said Parker, “is that the Ar¬ 
buthnot of the diary?” 





WHOSE BODY? 


95 


“I suppose so. I hunted him up because I 
knew he was fond of fooling round the Stock 
Exchange. As for Milligan, he looks all right, 
but I believe he’s pretty ruthless in business and 
you never can tell. Then there’s the red-haired 
secretary—lightnin’ calculator man with a face 
like a fish, keeps on sayin’ nuthin’—got the Tar- 
baby in his family tree, I should think. Milli¬ 
gan’s got a jolly good motive for, at any rate, 
suspendin’ Levy for a few days. Then there’s 
the new man.” 

“What new man?” 

“Ah, that’s the letter I mentioned to you. 
Where did I put it? here we are. Good parch¬ 
ment paper, printed address of solicitor’s office in 
Salisbury, and postmark to correspond. Very 
precisely written with a fine nib by an elderly 
business man of old-fashioned habits.” 

Parker took the letter and read: 

Salisbury. 

t Solicitors 
Milford Hill, Salisbury 

17 November, 192—. 


Sir: 

With reference to your advertisement to-day in the 
personal column of The Times , I am disposed to 
believe that the eyeglasses and chain in question may 
be those I lost on the L. B. & S. C. Electric Rail- 




96 


WHOSE BODY? 


4 


way while visiting London last Monday. I left Vic¬ 
toria by the 5; 45 train, and did not notice my loss 
till I arrived at Balham. This indication and the 
optician’s specification of the glasses, which I enclose, 
should suffice at once as an identification and a guar¬ 
antee of my bona fides. If the glasses should prove 
to be mine, I should be greatly obliged to you if you 
would kindly forward them to me by registered post, 
as the chain was a present from my daughter, and 
is one of my dearest possessions. 

Thanking you in advance for this kindness, and re¬ 
gretting the trouble to which I shall be putting you, I 
am, 

Yours very truly, 

Thos. Crimplesham. 

Lord Peter Wimsey, 

110, Piccadilly, W. 

(Enel.) 

“Dear me,” said Parker, “this is what you 
might call unexpected.” 

“Either it is some extraordinary misunder¬ 
standing,” said Lord Peter, “or Mr. Crimplesham 
is a very bold and cunning villain. Or possibly, 
of course, they are the wrong glasses. We may 
as well get a ruling on that point at once. I sup¬ 
pose the glasses are at the Yard. I wish you’d 
just ring ’em up and ask ’em to send round an 
optician’s description of them at once—and you 
might ask at the same time whether it’s a very 
common prescription.” 

“Right you are,” said Parker, and took the re¬ 
ceiver off its hook. 



WHOSE BODY? 


97 


“And now,” said his friend, when the message 
was delivered, “just come into the library for a 
minute.” » 

On the library table, Lord Peter had spread 
out a series of bromide prints, some dry, some 
damp, and some but half-washed. 

“These little ones are the originals of the pho¬ 
tos we’ve been taking,” said Lord Peter, “and 
these big ones are enlargements all made to pre¬ 
cisely the same scale. This one here is the foot¬ 
mark on the linoleum; well put that by itself at 
present. Now these finger-prints can be divided 
into five lots. I’ve numbered ’em on the prints—* 
see ?—and made a list: 

“A. The finger-prints of Levy himself, off his 
little bedside book and his hairbrush—tins and 
this—you can’t mistake the little scar on the 
thumb. 

“B. The smudges made by the gloved fingers 
of the man who slept in Levy’s room on Monday 
night. They show clearly on the water-bottle 
and on the boots—superimposed on Levy’s. 
They are very distinct on the boots—surprisingly 
so for gloved hands, and I deduce that the gloves 
were rubber ones and had recently been in water. 

“Here’s another interestin’ point. Levy 
walked in the rain on Monday night, as w r e know, 
and these dark marks are mud-splashes. You 
see they lie over Levy’s finger-prints in every 
case. Now see: on this left boot we find the 






98 


WHOSE BODY? 


stranger’s thumb-mark over the mud on the 
leather above the heel. That’s a funny place to 
find a thumb-mark on a boot, isn’t it? That is, 
if Levy took off his own- boots. But it’s the place 
where you’d expect to see it if somebody forcibly 
removed his boots for him. Again, most of the 
stranger’s finger-marks come over the mud- 
marks, but here is one splash of mud which comes 
on top of them again. Which makes me infer 
that the stranger came back to Park Lane, wear¬ 
ing Levy’s boots, in- a cab, carriage or car, but 
that at some point or other he walked a little way 
—just enough to tread in a puddle and get a 
splash on the boots. What do you say?” 

“Very pretty,” said Parker. “A bit intricate, 
though, and the marks are not all that I could 
wish a finger-print to be.” 

“Well, I won’t lay too much stress on it. But 
it fits in with our previous ideas. Now let’s turn 
to: 

“C. The prints obligingly left by my own par¬ 
ticular villain on the further edge of Thipps’s 
bath, where you spotted them, and I ought to be 
scourged for not having spotted them. The left 
hand, you notice, the base of the palm and the 
fingers, but not the tips, looking as though he 
had steadied himself on the edge of the bath while 
leaning down to adjust something at the bot¬ 
tom, the pince-nez perhaps. Gloved, you see, 
but showing no ridge or seam of any kind—I say 





WHOSE BODY? 


99 


rubber, you say rubber. That’s that. Now see 
here: 

“D and E come off a visiting-card of mine. 
There’s this thing at the corner, marked E, but 
that you can disregard; in the original docu¬ 
ment it’s a sticky mark left by the thumb of the 
youth who took it from me, after first removing 
a piece of chewing-gum from his teeth with his 
finger to tell me that Mr. Milligan might or 
might not be disengaged. D and E are the 
thumb-marks of Mr. Milligan and his red-haired 
secretary. I’m not clear which is which, but I 
saw the youth with the chewing-gum hand the 
>card to the secretary, and when I got into the 
inner shrine I saw John P. Milligan standing 
with it in his hand, so it’s one or the other, and 
if or the moment it’s immaterial to our purpose 
which is which. I boned the card from the table 
when I left. 

“Well, now, Parker, here’s what’s been keep¬ 
ing Bunter and me up till the small hours. I’ve 
measured and measured every way backwards 
and forwards till my head’s spinnin’, and I’ve 
stared till I’m nearly blind, but I’m hanged if I 
can make my mind up. Question 1. Is C identi¬ 
cal with B? Question 2. Is D or E identical 
with B ? There’s nothing to go on but the size 
and shape, of course, and the marks are so faint 
«—what do you think?” 

Parker shook his head doubtfully. 





100 


WHOSE BODY 


“I think E might almost be put out of the 
question,” he said, “it seems such an excessively: 
long and narrow thumb. But I think there is a 
decided resemblance between the span of B on 
the water-bottle and C on the bath. And I don’t 
see any reason why D shouldn’t be the same as 
B, only there’s so little to judge from.” 

“Your untutored judgment and my measure¬ 
ments have brought us both to the same conclu¬ 
sion—if you can call it a conclusion,” said Lord 
Peter, bitterly. 

“Another thing,” said Parker. “Why on earth 
should we try to connect B with C? The fast 
that you and I happen to be friends doesn’t make 
it necessary to conclude that the two cases we 
happen to be interested in have any organic con¬ 
nection with one another. Why should they? 
The only person who thinks they have is Sugg, 
and he’s nothing to go by. It would be different 
if there were any truth in the suggestion that 
the man in the bath was Levy, but we know for 
a certainty he wasn’t. It’s ridiculous to suppose 
that the same man was employed in committing 
two totally distinct crimes on the same night, one 
in Battersea and the other in Park Lane.” 

“I know,” said Wimsey, “though of course we 
mustn’t forget that Levy was in Battersea at the 
time, and now we know he didn’t return home at 
twelve as was supposed, we’ve no reason to think 
he ever left Battersea at all.” 






WHOSE BODY? 


101 


“True. But there are other places in Battersea 
besides Thipps’s bathroom. And he wasnt in 
Thipps’s bathroom. In fact, come to think of it, 
that’s the one place in the universe where we 
know T definitely that he wasn’t. So what’s 
Thipps’s bath got to do with it?” 

“I don’t know,” said Lord Peter. “Well, per¬ 
haps we shall get something better to go on to¬ 
day.” 

He leaned back in his chair and smoked 
thoughtfully for some time over the papers which 
Bunter had marked for him. 

“They’ve got you out in the limelight,” he 
said. “Thank Heaven, Sugg hates me too much 
to give me any publicity. What a dull Agony 
Column! ‘Darling Pipsey—Come back soon to 
your distracted Popsey’—and the usual young 
man in need of financial assistance, and the usual 
injunction to ‘Remember thy Creator in the days 
of thy youth.’ Hullo! there's the bell. Oh, it’s 
our answer from Scotland Yard.” 

The note from Scotland Yard enclosed an op¬ 
tician’s specification identical with that sent by 
Mr. Crimplesham, and added that it was an un¬ 
usual one, owing to the peculiar strength of the 
lenses and the marked difference between the 
sight of the two eyes. 

“That’s good enough,” said Parker. 

“Yes,” said Wimsey. “Then Possibility No. 

3 is knocked on the head. There remain Possi- 

% 




102 


WHOSE BODY? 


bility No. 1: Accident or Misunderstanding, and 
No. 2: Deliberate Villainy, of a remarkably bold 
and calculating kind—of a kind, in fact, charac¬ 
teristic of the author or authors of our two prob¬ 
lems. Following the methods inculcated at that 
University of which I have the honour to be a 
member, we will now examine severally the vari¬ 
ous suggestions afforded by Possibility No. 2. 
This Possibility may be again subdivided into» 
two or more Hypotheses. On Hypothesis 1 
(strongly advocated by my distinguished col¬ 
league Professor Snupshed), the criminal, whom 
we may designate as N, is not identical with 
Crimplesham, but is using the name of Crimple- 
sham as his shield, or aegis. This hypothesis may 
be further subdivided into two alternatives. Al¬ 
ternative A: Crimplesham is an innocent and un¬ 
conscious accomplice, and X is in his employ¬ 
ment. X writes in Crimplesham’s name on 
Crimplesham’s office-paper and obtains that the 
object in question, i.e., the eyeglasses, be des¬ 
patched to Crimplesham’s address. He is in a 
position to intercept the parcel before it reaches 
Crimplesham. The presumption is that X is 
Crimplesham’s charwoman, office-boy, clerk, sec¬ 
retary or porter. This offers a wide field of in¬ 
vestigation. The method of enquiry will be to 
interview Crimplesham and discover whether he 
sent the letter, and if not, who has access to his 
correspondence. Alternative B: Crimplesham is 




WHOSE BODY? 


103 


under X’s influence or in his power, and has been 
induced to write the letter by (a) bribery, ( b) 
misrepresentation or ( c) threats. X may in that 
case be a persuasive relation or friend, or else a 
creditor, blackmailer or assassin; Crimplesham, 
on the other hand, is obviously venal or a fool. 
The method of enquiry in this case, I would ten¬ 
tatively suggest, is again to interview Crimple¬ 
sham, put the facts of the case strongly before 
him, and assure him in the most intimidating 
terms that he is liable to a prolonged term of 
penal servitude as an accessory after the fact in 

the crime of murder- Ah-hem! Trusting, 

gentlemen, that you have followed me thus far, 
we will pass to the consideration of Hypothesis 
No. 2, to which I personally incline, and accord¬ 
ing to which X is identical with Crimplesham. 

“In this case, Crimplesham, who is, in the 
words of an English classic, a man-of-infinite- 
resource-and-sagacity, correctly deduces that, of 
all people, the last whom we shall expect to find 
answering our advertisement is the criminal him¬ 
self. Accordingly, he plays a bold game of bluff. 
He invents an occasion on which the glasses may 
very easily have been lost or stolen, and applies 
for them. If confronted, nobody will be more 
astonished than he to learn where they were 
found. He will produce witnesses to prove that 
he left Victoria at 5:45 and emerged from the 
train at Balham at the scheduled time, and sat 





104 


WHOSE BODY? 


up all Monday night playing chess with a re¬ 
spectable gentleman well known in Balham. In 
this case, the method of enquiry will be to pump 
the respectable gentleman in Balham, and if he 
should happen to be a single gentleman with a 
deaf housekeeper, it may be no easy matter to 
impugn the alibi, since, outside detective ro¬ 
mances, few ticket-collectors and ’bus-conductors 
keep an exact remembrance of all the passengers 
passing between Balham and London on any and 
every evening of the week. 

“Finally, gentlemen, I will frankly point out 
the weak point of all these hypotheses, namely: 
that none of them offers any explanation as to 
why the incriminating article was left so conspic¬ 
uously on the body in the first instance.” 

Mr. Parker had listened with commendable 
patience to this academic exposition. 

“Might not X,” he suggested, “be an enemy of 
Crimplesham’s, who designed to throw suspicion 
upon him?” 

“He might. In that case he should be easy to 
discover, since he obviously lives in close prox¬ 
imity to Crimplesham and his glasses, and Crim- 
plesahm in fear of his life will then be a valuable 
ally for the prosecution.” 

“How about the first possibility of all, mis¬ 
understanding or accident?” 

“Well! Well, for purposes of discussion, 






WHOSE BODY? 


105 


nothing, because it really doesn’t afford any data 
for discussion.” 

“In any case,” said Parker, “the obvious course 
appears to be to go to Salisbury.” 

“That seems indicated,” said Lord Peter. 

“Very well,” said the detective, “is it to be you 
or me or both of us?” 

“It is to be me,” said Lord Peter, “and that for 
two reasons. First, because, if (by Possibility 
No. 2, Hypothesis 1, Alternative A) Crimple- 
sham is an innocent catspaw, the person who put 
in the advertisement is the proper person to hand 
over the property. Secondly, because, if we are 
to adopt Hypothesis 2, we must not overlook the 
sinister possibility that Crimplesham-X is laying 
a careful trap to rid himself of the person who so 
unwarily advertised in the daily press his interest 
in the solution of the Battersea Park mystery.” 

“That appears to me to be an argument for our 
both going,” objected the detective. 

“Far from it,” said Lord Peter. “Why play 
into the hands of Crimplesham-X by delivering 
over to him the only two men in London with the 
evidence, such as it is, and shall I say the wits, 
to connect him with the Battersea body?” 

“But if we told the Yard where we were going, 
and we both got nobbled,” said Mr. Parker, “it 
would afford strong presumptive evidence of 
Crimplesham’s guilt, and anyhow, if he didn’t 
get hanged for murdering the man in the bath 





106 


WHOSE BODY? 


he’d at least get hanged for murdering us.” 

“Well,” said Lord Peter, “if he only murdered 
me you could still hang him—what’s the good of 
wasting a sound, marriageable young male like 
yourself? Besides, how about old Levy? If 
you’re incapacitated, do you think anybody else 
is going to find him?” 

“But we could frighten Crimplesham by 
threatening him with the Yard.” 

“Well, dash it all, if it comes to that, I can 
frighten him by threatening him with you, which, 
seeing you hold what evidence there is, is much 
more to the point. And, then, suppose it’s a 
wild-goose chase after all, you’ll have wasted time 
when you might have been getting on with the 
case. There are several things that need doing.” 

“Well,” said Parker, silenced but reluctant, 
“why can’t I go, in that case?” 

“Bosh!” said Lord Peter. “I am retained (by 
old Mrs. Thipps, for whom I entertain the great¬ 
est respect) to deal with this case, and it’s only 
by courtesy I allow you to have anything to do 
with it.” 

Mr. Parker groaned. 

“Will you at least take Bunter?” he said. 

“In deference to your feelings,” replied Lord 
Peter, “I will take Bunter, though he could be 
far more usefully employed taking photographs 
or overhauling my wardrobe. When is there a 
good train to Salisbury, Bunter?” 




WHOSE BODY? 


107 


“There is an excellent train at 10: 50, my lord.’’ 

“Kindly make arrangements to catch it,” said 
Lord Peter, throwing off his bathrobe and trail¬ 
ing away with it into his bedroom. “And Parker 
—if you have nothing else to do you might get 
hold of Levy’s secretary and look into that little 
matter of the Peruvian oil.” 

Lord Peter took with him, for light reading in 
the train, Sir Reuben Levy’s diary. It was a 
simple, and in the light of recent facts, rather a 
pathetic document. The terrible fighter of the 
Stock Exchange, who could with one nod set the 
surly bear dancing, or bring the savage bull to 
feed out of his hand, whose breath devastated 
whole districts with famine or swept financial 
potentates from their seats, was revealed in- pri¬ 
vate fife as kindly, domestic, innocently proud of 
himself and his belongings, confiding, generous 
and a little dull. His own small economies were 
duly chronicled side by side with extravagant 
presents to his wife and daughter. Small inci¬ 
dents of household routine appeared, such as: 
“Man came to mend the conservatory roof,” or 
“The new butler (Simpson) has arrived, recom¬ 
mended by the Goldbergs. I think he will be 
satisfactory.” All visitors and entertainments 
were duly entered, from a very magnificent lunch 
to Lord Dewsbury, the Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, and Dr. Jabez K. Wort, the American 





108 


WHOSE BODY? 


plenipotentiary, through a series of diplomatic 
dinners to eminent financiers, down to intimate 
family gatherings of persons designated by 
Christian names or nicknames. About May there 
came a mention of Lady Levy’s nerves, and 
further reference was made to the subject in sub¬ 
sequent months. In September it was stated that 
“Freke came to see my dear wife and advised 
complete rest and change of scene. She thinks 
of going abroad with Rachel.” The name of the 
famous nerve-specialist occurred as a diner or 
luncher about once a month, and it came into 
Lord Peter’s mind that Freke would be a good 
person to consult about Levy himself. “People 
sometimes tell things to the doctor,” he murmured 
to himself. “And, by Jove! if Levy was simply 
going round to see Freke on Monday night, that 
rather disposes of the Battersea incident, doesn’t 
it?” He made a note to look up Sir Julian and 
turned on further. On September 18th, Lady 
Levy and her daughter had left for the south of 
France. Then suddenly, under the date October 
5th, Lord Peter found what he was looking for; 
“Goldberg, Skriner and Milligan to dinner.” 

There was the evidence that Milligan had been 
in that house. There had been a formal enter¬ 
tainment—a meeting as of two duellists shaking 
hands before the fight. Skriner was a well-known 
picture-dealer; Lord Peter imagined an after- 
dinner excursion upstairs to see the two Corots 





WHOSE BODY? 


10 <> 


in the drawing-room, and the portrait of the 
eldest Levy girl, who had died at the age of six¬ 
teen. It was by Augustus John, and hung in the 
bedroom. The name of the red-haired secretary 
was nowhere mentioned, unless the initial S., 
occurring in another entry, referred to him. 
Throughout September and October, Anderson 
f(of Wyndham’s) had been a frequent visitor. 

Lord Peter shook his head over the diary, and 
turned to the consideration of the Battersea Park 
mystery. Whereas in the Levy affair it was 
easy enough to supply a motive for the crime, if 
crime it were, and the difficulty was to discover 
the method of its carrying out and the where¬ 
abouts of the victim, in the other case the chief 
obstacle to enquiry was the entire absence of any 
imaginable motive. It was odd that, although 
the papers had carried news of the affair from one 
end of the country to the other and a description 
of the body had been sent to every police station 
in the country, nobody had as yet come forward 
to identify the mysterious occupant of Mr. 
Thipps’s bath. It was true that the description, 
which mentioned the clean-shaven chin, elegantly 
cut hair and the pince-nez, was rather misleading 
but on the other hand, the police had managed to 
discover the number of molars missing, and the 
height, complexion and other data were correctly 
enough stated, as also the date at which death had 
presumably occurred. It seemed, however, as 







110 


WHOSE BODY? 


though the man had melted out of society with¬ 
out leaving a gap or so much as a ripple. Assign¬ 
ing a motive for the murder of a person without 
relations or antecedents or even clothes is like 
trying to visualize the fourth dimension—admi¬ 
rable exercise for the imagination, but arduous 
and inconclusive. Even if the day’s interview 
should disclose black spots in the past or present 
of Mr. Crimplesham, how were they to be 
brought into connection with a person ap¬ 
parently without a past, and whose present was 
confined to the narrow limits of a bath and a 
police mortuary? 

“Bunter,” said Lord Peter, “I beg that in the 
future you will restrain me from starting two 
hares at once. These cases are gettin’ to be a 
strain on my constitution. One hare has no¬ 
where to run from, and the other has nowhere 
to run to. It’s a kind of mental D.T., Bunter. 
When this is over I shall turn pussyfoot, for¬ 
swear the police news, and take to an emollient 
diet of the works of the late Charles Garvice.” 

* * * 

It was its comparative proximity to Milford 
Hill that induced Lord Peter to lunch at the 
Minster Hotel rather than at the White Hart or 
some other more picturesquely situated hostel. 
It was not a lunch calculated to cheer his mind; 






WHOSE BODY? 


Ill 


as in all Cathedral cities, the atmosphere of the 
Close pervades every nook and corner of Salis¬ 
bury, and no food in that city but seems faintly 
flavoured with prayer-books. As he sat sadly 
consuming that impassive pale substance known 
to the English as “cheese” unqualified (for there 
are cheeses which go openly by their names, as 
Stilton, Camembert, Gruyere, Wensleydale or 
Gorgonzola, but “cheese” is cheese and every¬ 
where the same), he enquired of the waiter the 
whereabouts of Mr. Crimplesham’s office. 

The waiter directed him to a house rather 
further up the street on the opposite side, adding, 
“But anybody’ll tell you, sir; Mr. Crimplesham’s 
very well known hereabouts.” 

“He’s a good solicitor, I suppose?” said Lord 
Peter. 

“Oh, yes, sir,” said the waiter, “you couldn’t 
do better than trust to Mr. Crimplesham, sir. 
There’s folk say he’s old-fashioned, but I’d 
rather have my little bits of business done by 
Mr. Crimplesham than by one of these fly-away 
young men. Not but what Mr. Crimplesham’ll 
be retiring soon, sir, I don’t doubt, for he must 
be close on eighty, sir, if he’s a day, but then 
there’s young Mr. Wicks to carry on the busi¬ 
ness, and he’s a very nice, steady-like young 
gentleman.” 

“Is Mr. Crimplesham really as old as that?” 
said Lord Peter. “Dear me! He must be very 




WHOSE BODY? 


112 

». 

active for his years. A friend of mine was doing 
business with him in town last week.” 

“Wonderful active, sir,” agreed the waiter, 
“and with his game leg, too, you’d be surprised. 
But there, sir, I often think, when a man’s once 
past a certain age, the older he grows the tougher 
he gets, and women the same or more so.” 

“Very likely,” said Lord Peter, calling up and 
dismissing the mental picture of a gentleman of 
eighty with a game leg carrying a dead body 
over the roof of a Battersea flat at midnight. 
“ ‘He’s tough, sir, tough, is old Joey Bagstock, 
tough and devilish sly,’ ” he added, thoughtlessly. 

“Indeed, sir?” said the waiter. “I couldn’t 
say, I’m sure.” 

“I beg your pardon,” said Lord Peter, “I was 
quoting poetry. Very silly of me. I got the 
habit at my mother’s knee and I can’t break my¬ 
self of it.” 

“No, sir,” said the waiter, pocketing a liberal 
tip. “Thank you verj^ much, sir. You’ll find the 
house easy. Just afore you come to Penny¬ 
farthing Street, sir, about two turnings off, on 
the right hand side opposite.” 

“Afraid that disposes of Crimplesham-X,” 
said Lord Peter. “I’m rather sorry; he was a 
fine sinister figure as I had pictured him. Still, 
his may yet be the brain behind the hands—the 
aged spider sitting invisible in the centre of the 
vibrating web, you know, Bunter.” 





WHOSE BODY? 


113 


“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter. They were 
walking up the street together. 

“There is the office over the way,” pursued 
Lord Peter. “I think, Bunter, you might step 
into this little shop and purchase a sporting 
paper, and if I do not emerge from the villain’s 
lair—say within three-quarters of an hour, you 
may take such steps as your perspicuity may sug¬ 
gest.” 

Mr. Bunter turned into the shop as desired, 
and Lord Peter walked across and rang the law¬ 
yer’s bell with decision. 

“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but 
the truth is my long suit here, I fancy,” he mur¬ 
mured, and when the door was opened by a clerk 
he delivered over his card with an unflinching 
air. 

ITe was ushered immediately into a conflden- 
tial-looking office, obviously furnished in the early 
years of Queen Victoria’s reign, and never altered 
since. A lean, frail-looking old gentleman rose ^ 
briskly from his chair as he entered and limped 
forward to meet him. 

“My dear sir,” exclaimed the lawyer, “how r 
extremely good of you to come in person! In¬ 
deed, I am ashamed to have given you so much 
trouble. I trust you were passing this way, and 
that my glasses have not put you to any great 
inconvenience. Pray take a seat, Lord Peter.” 
He peered gratefully at the young man over a 




114 


WHOSE BODY? 


pince-nez obviously the fellow of that now adorn¬ 
ing a dossier in Scotland Yard. 

Lord Peter sat down. The lawyer sat down. 
Lord Peter picked up a glass paper-weight from 
the desk and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand. 
Subconsciously he noted what an admirable set 
of finger-prints he was leaving upon it. He re¬ 
placed it with precision on the exact centre of a 
pile of letters. 

“It’s quite all right,” said Lord Peter. “I 
was here on business. Yery happy to be of service 
to you. Very awkward to lose one’s glasses, Mr. 
Crimplesham.” 

“Yes,” said the lawyer, “I assure you I feel 
quite lost without them. I have this pair, but 
they do not fit my nose so well—besides, that 
chain has a great sentimental value for me. I 
was terribly distressed on arriving at Balham to 
find that I had lost them. I made enquiries of 
the railway, but to no purpose. I feared they had 
been stolen. There were such crowds at Vic¬ 
toria, and the carriage was packed with people 
all the way to Balham. Did you come across 
them in the train?” 

“Well, no,” said Lord Peter, “I found them in 
rather an unexpected place. Do you mind telling 
me if you recognized any of your fellow-travellers 
on that occasion?” 

The lawyer stared at him. 

“Not a soul,” he answered. “Why do you ask?” 





WHOSE BODY? 


115 


“Well,” said Lord Peter, “I thought perhaps 
the—the person with whom I found them might 
have taken them for a joke.” 

The lawyer looked puzzled. 

“Did the person claim to be an acquaintance 
of mine?” he enquired. “I know practically no¬ 
body in London, except the friend with whom I 
was staying in Balham, Dr. Philpots, and I 
should be very greatly surprised at his practising 
a jest upon me. He knew very well how dis¬ 
tressed I was at the loss of the glasses. My busi¬ 
ness was to attend a meeting of shareholders in 
Medlicott’s Bank, but the other gentlemen pres¬ 
ent were all personally unknown to me, and I 
cannot think that any of them would take so great 
a liberty. In any case,” he added, “as the glasses 
are here, I will not enquire too closely into the 
manner of their restoration. I am deeply obliged 
to you for your trouble.” 

Lord Peter hesitated. 

“Pray forgive my seeming inquisitiveness,” he 
said, “but I must ask you another question. It 
sounds rather melodramatic, I’m afraid, but it’s 
this. Are you aware that you have any enemy— 
anyone, I mean, who would profit by your—er— 
decease or disgrace?” 

Mr. Crimplesham sat frozen into stony sur¬ 
prise and disapproval. 

“May I ask the meaning of this extraordinary 
question?” he enquired stiffly. 




116 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Well,” said Lord Peter, “the circumstances 
are a little unusual. You may recollect that my 
advertisement was addressed to the jeweller who 
sold the chain.” 

“That surprised me at the time,” said Mr. 
^ Crimplesham, “but I begin to think your adver¬ 
tisement and your behaviour are all of a piece.” 

“Thev are,” said Lord Peter. “As a matter of 

7 

fact I did not expect the owner of the glasses to 
answer my advertisement. Mr. Crimplesham, 
you have no doubt read what the papers have to 
say about the Battersea Park mystery. Your 
glasses are the pair that was found on the body, 
and they are now in the possession of the police 
at Scotland Yard, as you may see by this.” He 
placed the specification of the glasses and the of¬ 
ficial note before Crimplesham. 

“Good God!” exclaimed the lawyer. He 
glanced at the paper, and then looked narrowly 
at Lord Peter. 

“Are you yourself connected w T ith the police?” 
he enquired. 

“Not officially,” said Lord Peter. “I arn in¬ 
vestigating the matter privately, in the interests 
of one of the parties.” 

Mr. Crimplesham rose to his feet. 

“My good man,” he said, “this is a very impu¬ 
dent attempt, but blackmail is an indictable of¬ 
fence, and I advise you to leave my office before 
you commit yourself.” He rang the bell. 







WHOSE BODY? 


117 


“I was afraid you’d take it like that,” said 
Lord Peter. “It looks as though this ought to 
have been my friend Detective Parker’s job, 
after all.” He laid Parker’s card on the table 
beside the specification, and added: “If you 
should wish to see me again, Mr. Crimplesham, 
before to-morrow morning, you will find me at * 
the Minster Hotel.” 

Mr. Crimplesham disdained to reply further 
than to direct the clerk who entered to “show 
this person out.” 

In the entrance Lord Peter brushed against 
a tall young man who was just coming in, and 
who stared at him with surprised recognition. 
His face, however, aroused no memories in Lord 
Peter’s mind, and that baffled nobleman, calling 
out Bunter from the newspaper shop, departed 
to his hotel to get a trunk-call through to Parker. 

Meanwhile, in the office, the meditations of the 
indignant Mr. Crimplesham were interrupted by 
the entrance of his junior partner. 

“I say,” said the latter gentleman, “has some¬ 
body done something really wicked at last? 
What ever brings such a distinguished amateur 
of crime on our sober doorstep?” 

“I have been the victim of a vulgar attempt at 
blackmail,” said the lawyer; “an individual pass¬ 
ing himself off as Lord Peter Wimsey-” 






118 


WHOSE BODY? 


“But that is Lord Peter Wimsey,'’ said Mr. 
Wicks, “there’s no mistaking him. I saw him 
give evidence in the Attenbury emerald case. 
He’s a big little pot in his way, you know, and 
goes fishing with the head of Scotland Yard.” 

“Oh, dear,” said Mr. Crimplesham. 

Fate arranged that the nerves of Mr. Crim¬ 
plesham should be tried that afternoon. When, 
escorted by Mr. Wicks, he arrived at the Minster 
Hotel, he was informed by the porter that Lord 
Peter Wimsey had strolled out, mentioning that 
he thought of attending Evensong. “But his 
man is here, sir,” he added, “if you like to leave 
a message.” 

Mr. Wicks thought that on the whole it would 
be well to leave a message. Mr. Bunter, on en¬ 
quiry, was found to be sitting by the telephone, 
waiting for a trunk-call. As Mr. Wicks ad¬ 
dressed him the bell rang, and Mr. Bunter, po¬ 
litely excusing himself, took down the receiver. 

“Hullo!” he said. “Is that Mr. Parker? Oh, 
thanks! Exchange! Exchange! Sorry, can you 
put me through to Scotland Yard? Excuse me, 
gentlemen, keeping you waiting.—Exchange! all 
right—Scotland Yard—PIullo! Is that Scotland 
Yard?—Is Detective Parker round there?—Can 
I speak to him?—I shall have done in a moment, 
gentlemen.—Hullo! is that you, Mr. Parker? 
Lord Peter would be much obliged if you could 







WHOSE BODY? 


119 


find it convenient to step down to Salisbury, sir* 
Oh, no, sir, he’s in excellent health, sir—just 
stepped round to hear Evensong, sir—oh, no, I 
think to-morrow morning would do excellently, 
sir, thank you, sij. n 
















It was, in fact, inconvenient for Mr. Parker to 
leave London. He had had to go and see Lady 
Levy towards the end of the morning, and sub¬ 
sequently his plans for the day had been thrown 
out of gear and his movements delayed by the 
discovery that the adjourned inquest of Mr. 
Thipp’s unknown visitor was to be held that aft¬ 
ernoon, since nothing very definite seemed forth¬ 
coming from Inspector Sugg’s enquiries. Jury 
and witnesses had been convened accordingly for 
three o’clock. Mr. Parker might altogether have 
missed the event, had he not run against Sugg 
that morning at the Yard and extracted the in¬ 
formation from him as one would a reluctant 
tooth. Inspector Sugg, indeed, considered Mr. 
Parker rather interfering; moreover, he was 
hand-in-glove with Lord Peter Wimsey, and In¬ 
spector Sugg had no words for the interfering¬ 
ness of Lord Peter. He could not, however, 
when directly questioned, deny that there was to 
be an inquest that afternoon, nor could he pre- 
yent Mr. Parker from enjoying the inalienable 
right of any interested British citizen to be pres¬ 
ent. At a little before three, therefore, Mr. 
Parker was in his place, and amusing himself 

121 


122 


WHOSE BODY? 


with watching the efforts of those persons who 
arrived after the room was packed to insinuate, 
bribe or bully themselves into a position of van¬ 
tage. The coroner, a medical man of precise 
habits and unimaginative aspect, arrived punc¬ 
tually, and looking peevishly round at the 
crowded assembly, directed all the windows to be 
opened, thus letting in a stream of drizzling fog 
upon the heads of the unfortunates on that side 
of the room. This caused a commotion and some 
expressions of disapproval, checked sternly by 
the coroner, who said that with the influenza; 
about again an unventilated room was a death¬ 
trap; that anybody who chose to object to open 
windows had the obvious remedy of leaving the 
court, and further, that if any disturbance was 
made he would clear the court. He then took a 
Formamint lozenge, and proceeded, after the 
usual preliminaries, to call up fourteen good and 
lawful persons and swear them diligently to en¬ 
quire and a true presentment make of all matters 
touching the death of the gentleman with the 
pince-nez and to give a true verdict according to 
the evidence, so help them God. When an ex¬ 
postulation by a woman juror—an elderly lady 
in spectacles who kept a sweetshop, and ap¬ 
peared to wish she was back there—had been 
summarily quashed by the coroner, the jury de¬ 
parted to view the body, Mr. Parker gazed 




WHOSE BODY? 


123 


round again and identified the unhappy Mr. 
Thipps and the girl Gladys led into an adjoining 
room under the grim guard of the police. They 
were soon followed by a gaunt old lady in a bon¬ 
net and mantle. With her, in a wonderful fur 
coat and a motor bonnet of fascinating construc¬ 
tion, came the Dowager Duchess of Denver, her 
quick, dark eyes darting hither and thither about 
the crowd. The next moment they had lighted 
on Mr. Parker, who had several times visited the 
Dower House, and she nodded to him, and spoke 
to a policeman. Before long, a way opened mag¬ 
ically through the press, and Mr. Parker found 
himself accommodated with a front seat just be¬ 
hind the Duchess, who greeted him charmingly, 
and said: “What’s happened to poor Peter?” 
Parker began to explain, and the coroner glanced 
irritably in their direction. Somebody went up 
and whispered in his ear, at which he coughed, 
and took another Formamint. 

“We came up by car,” said the Duchess—“so 
tiresome—such bad roads between Denver and 
Gunbury St. Walters—and there were people 
coming to lunch—I had to put them off—I 
couldn’t let the old lady go alone, could I? By 
the way, such an odd thing’s happened about the 
Church Restoration Fund—the Vicar—oh, dear, 
here are these people coming back again; well, 
I’ll tell you afterwards—do look at that woman 




124 


WHOSE BODY? 


looking shocked, and the girl in tweeds trying to 
look as if she sat on undraped gentlemen every 
day of her life—I don’t mean that—corpses of 
course—but one finds oneself being so Eliza¬ 
bethan nowadays—what an awful little man the 
coroner is, isn’t he? He’s looking daggers at me 
—do you think he’ll dare to clear me out of the 
court or commit me for what-you-may-call-it?” 

The first part of the evidence was not of great 
interest to Mr. Parker. The wretched Mr. 
Thipps, who had caught cold in gaol, deposed in 
an unhappy croak to having discovered the body 
when he went in to take his bath at eight o’clock. 
He had arrived at St. Pancras at ten o’clock. He 
send the girl for brandy. ' He had never seen the 
deceased before. He had no idea how he came 
there. 

Yes, he had been in Manchester the day before. 
He had arrived at St. Pancras at ten o’clock. He 
had cloak-roomed his bag. At this point Mr. 
Thipps became very red, unhappy and confused, 
and glanced nervously about the court. 

“Now, Mr. Thipps,” said the Coroner, briskly, 
“we must have your movements quite clear. You 
must appreciate the importance of the matter. 
You have chosen to give evidence, which you need 
not have done, but having done so, you will find 
it best to be perfectly explicit.” 

*Yes,” said Mr. Thipps faintly. 







WHOSE BODY? 


125 


“Have you cautioned this witness, officer?” in¬ 
quired the Coroner, turning sharply to Inspector 

Sugg- 

The Inspector replied that he had told Mr. 
Thipps that anything he said might be used 
again 5 him at his trial. Mr. Thipps became ashy, 
and said in a bleating voice that he ’adn’t—hadn’t 
meant to do anything that wasn’t right. 

This remark produced a mild sensation, and 
the Coroner became even more acidulated in man¬ 
ner than before. 

“Is anybody representing Mr. Thipps?” he 
asked, irritably. “No? Did you not explain 
to him that he could—that he ought to be repre¬ 
sented? You did not? Beally, Inspector! Did 
you not know, Mr. Thipps, that you had a right 
to be legally represented?” 

Mr. Thipps clung to a chair-back for support, 
and said “No” in a voice barely audible. 

“It is incredible,” said the Coroner, “that so- 
called educated people should be so ignorant of 
the legal procedure of their own country. This 
places us in a very awkward position. I doubt. 
Inspector, whether I should permit the prisoner 
*—Mr. Thipps—to give evidence at all. It is a 
delicate position.” 

The perspiration stood on Mr. Thipps’s fore¬ 
head. 

“Save us from our friends,” whispered the 





126 


WHOSE BODY? 


Duchess to Parker. “If that cough-drop-de¬ 
vouring creature had openly instructed those 
fourteen people—and what unfinished-looking 
faces they have—so characteristic, I always 
think, of the lower middle-class, rather like sheep, 
or calves’ head (boiled, I mean), to bring in wil¬ 
ful murder against the poor little man, he 
couldn’t have made himself plainer.” 

“He can’t let him incriminate himself, you 
know,” said Parker. 

“Stuff!” said the Duchess. “How could the 
man incriminate himself when he never did any¬ 
thing in his life? You men never think of any¬ 
thing but your red tape.” 

Meanwhile Mr. Thipps, wiping his brow with 
a handkerchief, had summoned up courage. He 
stood up with a kind of weak dignity, like a small 
White rabbit brought to bay. 

“I would rather tell you,” he said, “though it’s 
reelly very unpleasant for a man in my posi¬ 
tion. But I reelly couldn’t have it thought for, 
a moment that I’d committed this dreadful crime. 
I assure you, gentlemen, I couldn't bear that. 
No. I’d rather tell you the truth, though I’m 
afraid it places me in rather a—well. I’ll tell 
you.” 

“You fully understand the gravity of making 
such a statement, Mr. Thipps,” said the Coroner. 






WHOSE BODY? 


127 


“Quite,” said Mr. Thipps. “It's all right—I 
1 —might I have a drink of water ?” 

“Take your time,” said the Coroner, at the 
same time robbing his remark of all conviction by 
an impatient glance at his watch. 

“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Thipps. “Well, 
then, it’s true I got to St. Pancras at ten. But 
there was a man in the carriage with me. He’d 
got in at Leicester. I didn’t recognize him at 
first, but he turned out to be an old schoolfellow 
of mine.” 

“What was this gentleman’s name?” enquired 
the Coroner, his pencil poised. 

Mr. Thipps shrank together visibly. 

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” he said. 
“You see—that is, you will see—it would get him 
into trouble, and I couldn’t do that—no, I reelly 
couldn’t do that, not if my life depended on it. 
No!” he added, as the ominous pertinence of the 
last phrase smote upon him, “I’m sure I couldn’t 
do that.” 

“Well, well,” said the Coroner. 

The Duchess leaned over to Parker again. 
“I’m beginning quite to admire the little man,” 
she said. 

Mr. Thipps resumed. 

“When we got to St. Pancras I was going 
home, but my friend said no. We hadn’t met for 
a long time and we ought to—to make a night of 






128 


WHOSE BODY? 


it, was his expression. I fear I was weak, and let 
him overpersuade me to accompany him to one 
of his haunts. I use the word advisedly,” said 
Mr. Tliipps, “and I assure you, sir, that if I had 
known beforehand where we w r ere going I never 
would have set foot in the place. 

“I cloak-roomed my bag, for he did not like the 
notion of our being encumbered with it, and we 
got into a taxicab and drove to the corner of 
Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. We 
then walked a little way, and turned into a side 
street (I do not recollect which) where there was 
an open door, with the light shining out. There 
was a man at a counter, and my friend bought 
some tickets, and I heard the man at the counter 
say something to him about ‘Your friend/ mean¬ 
ing me, and my friend said, ‘Oh, yes, he’s been 
here before, haven’t you, Alf ?’ (which was what 
they called me at school), though I assure you, 
sir”—here Mr. Thipps grew very earnest—“I 
never had, and nothing in the world should in¬ 
duce me to go to such a place again. 

“Well, we went down into a room underneath, 
where there were drinks, and my friend had sev¬ 
eral, and made me take one or two—though I am 
an abstemious man as a rule—and he talked to 
some other men and girls who were there—a very 
vulgar set of people, I thought them, though I 
wouldn’t say but what some of the young ladies 





WHOSE BODY? 


129 


were nice-looking enough. One of them sat on 
my friend’s knee and called him a slow old thing, 
and fold him to come on—so we went into an¬ 
other room, where there were a lot of people 
dancing all these up-to-date dances. My friend 
went and danced, and I sat on a sofa. One of the 
young ladies came up to me and said, didn’t I 
dance, and I said ‘No,’ so she said wouldn’t I 
stand her a drink then. ‘You’ll stand us a drink 
then, darling,’ that was what she said, and I said, 
‘Wasn’t it after hours?’ and she said that didn’t 
matter. So I ordered the drink—a gin and bitters 
it was—for I didn’t like not to, the young lady 
seemed to expect it of me and I felt it wouldn’t 
be gentlemanly to refuse when she asked. But it 
went against my conscience—such a young girl 
as she was—and she put her arm round my neck 
afterwards and kissed me just like as if she was 
paying for the drink—and it reelly went to my 
’eart,” said Mr. Thipps, a little ambiguously, but 
with uncommon emphasis. 

Here somebody at the back said, “Cheer-oh!” 
and a sound was heard as of the noisy smacking 
of lips. 

“Remove the person who made that improper 
noise,” said the Coroner, with great indignation. 
“Go on, please, Mr. Thipps.” 

“Well,” said Mr. Thipps, “about half past 
twelve, as I should reckon, things began to get a 






130 


WHOSE BODY? 


bit lively, and I was looking for my friend to say 
good-night, not wishing to stay longer, as you 
will understand, when I saw him with one of the 
young ladies, and they seemed to be getting on 
altogether too well, if you follow me, my friend 
pulling the ribbons off her shoulder and the 
young lady laughing—and so on,” said Mr. 
Thipps, hurriedly, “so I thought I’d just slip 
quietly out, when I heard a scuffle and a shout— 
and before I knew what was happening there 
were half a dozen policemen in, and the lights 
went out, and everybody stampeding and shout¬ 
ing—quite horrid, it was. I was knocked down 
in the rush, and hit my head a nasty knock on a 
chair—that was where I got that bruise they 
asked me about—and I was dreadfully afraid I’d 
never get away and it would all come out, and 
perhaps my photograph in the papers, when 
someone caught hold of me—I think it was the 
young lady I’d given the gin and bitters to—and 
she said, ‘This way,’ and pushed me along a pas¬ 
sage and out at the back somewhere. So I ran 
through some streets, and found myself in 
Goodge Street, and there I got a taxi and came 
home. I saw the account of the raid afterwards 
in the papers, and saw my friend had escaped, 
and so, as it w r asn’t the sort of thing I wanted 
made public and I didn’t want to get him into 
difficulties, I just said nothing. But that’s the 
truth.” 






WHOSE BODY? 


131 


“Well, Mr. Thipps,” said the Coroner, “we 
shall be able to substantiate a certain amount of 
this story. Your friend’s name- 55 

“No,” said Mr. Thipps, stoutly, “not on any 
account.” 

“Very good,” said the Coroner. “Now, can 
you tell us what time you did get in?” 

“About half past one, I should think. Though 
reelly, I was so upset-” 

“Quite so. Did you go straight to bed?” 

“Yes, I took my sandwich and glass of milk 
first. I thought it might settle my inside, so to 
speak,” added the witness, apologetically, “not 
being accustomed to alcohol so late at night and 
on an empty stomach, as you may say.” 

“Quite so. Nobody sat up for you?” 

“Nobody.” 

“How long did you take getting to bed first 
and last?” 

Mr. Thipps thought it might have been half 
an hour. 

“Did you visit the bathroom before turning 
inf 

“No.” 

“And you heard nothing in the night?” 

“No. I fell fast asleep. I was rather agitated, 
so I took a little dose to make me sleep, and what 
with being so tired and the milk and the dose, I 
just tumbled right off and didn’t wake till 
Gladys called me.” 






132 


WHOSE BODY? 


Further questioning elicited little from Mr. 
Thipps. Yes, the bathroom window had been 
open when he went in in the morning, he was 
sure of that, and he had spoken very sharply 
to the girl about it. He was ready to answer any 
questions; he would be only too ’appy—happy to 
have this dreadful affair sifted to the bottom. 

Gladys Horrocks stated that she had been in 
Mr. Thipps’s employment about three months. 
Her previous employers would speak to her char¬ 
acter. It was her duty to make the round of 
the flat at night, when she had seen Mrs. Thipps 
to bed at ten. Yes, she remembered doing so on 
Monday evening. She had looked into all the 
rooms. Did she recollect shutting the bathroom 
window that night? Well, no, she couldn’t 
swear to it, not in particular, but when Mr. 
Thipps called her into the bathroom in the morn¬ 
ing it certainly was open. She had not been into 
the bathroom before Mr. Thipps went in. Well, 
yes, it had happened that she had left that win¬ 
dow open before, when anyone had been ’aving 
a bath in the evening and ’ad left the blind down. 
Mrs. Thipps ’ad ’ad a bath on Monday evening, 
Mondays was one of her regular bath nights. 
She was very much afraid she ’adn’t shut the 
window on Monday night, though she wished her 
5 ead ’ad been cut off afore she’d been so forgetful. 

Here the witness burst into tears and was 




WHOSE BODY? 


133 


given some water, while the Coroner refreshed 
himself with a third lozenge. 

Recovering, witness stated that she had cer¬ 
tainly looked into all the rooms before going to 
bed. No, it was quite impossible for a body to be 
’idden in the flat without her seeing of it. She 
*ad been in the kitchen all evening, and there 
wasn't ’ardly room to keep the best dinner serv¬ 
ice there, let alone a body. Old Mrs. Thipps sat 
in the drawing-room. Yes, she was sure she’d 
been into the dining-room. How? Because she 
put Mr. Thipps’s milk and sandwiches there ready 
for him. There had been nothing in there,—that 
she could swear to. Nor yet in her own bedroom, 
nor in the ’all. Had she searched the bedroom 
cupboard and the box-room? Well, no, not to 
say searched; she wasn’t used to searchin’ peo¬ 
ple’s ’ouses for skelintons every night. So that 
a man might have concealed himself in the box- 
room or a wardrobe? She supposed he might. 

In reply to a woman juror—well, yes, she was 
walking out with a young man. Williams was 
his name, Bill Williams—well, yes, William Wil¬ 
liams, if they insisted. He was a glazier by pro¬ 
fession. Well, yes, he ’ad been in the flat some¬ 
times. Well, she supposed you might say he was 
acquainted with the flat. Had she ever—no, she 
’adn’t, and if she’d thought such a question was 
going to be put to a respectable girl she wouldn’t 





134 


WHOSE BODY? 


’ave offered to give evidence. The vicar of St. 
Mary’s would speak to her character and to Mr. 
Williams’s. Last time Mr. Williams was at the 
flat was a fortnight ago. 

Well, no, it wasn’t exactly the last time she ’ad 
seen Mr. Williams. Well, yes, the last time was 
Monday—well, yes, Monday night. Well, if she 
must tell the truth, she must. Yes, the officer 
had cautioned her, but there wasn’t any ’arm in 
it, and it was better to lose her place than to be 
5 ung, though it was a cruel shame a girl couldn’t 
’ave a bit of fun without a nasty corpse comm’ 
in through the window to get ’er into difficulties. 
After she ’ad put Mrs. Thipps to bed, she ’ad 
slipped out to go to the Plumbers’ and Glaziers’ 
Ball at the ‘‘Black Faced Ram.” Mr. Williams 
’ad met ’er and brought ’er back. ’E could tes¬ 
tify to where she’d been and that there wasn’t no 
’arm in it. She’d left before the end of the ball. It 
might ’ave been two o’clock when she got back. 
She’d got the keys of the flat from Mrs. Thipps’s 
drawer when Mrs. Thipps wasn’t looking. She 
’ad asked leave to go, but couldn’t get it, along 
of Mr. Thipps bein’ away that night. She was 
bitterly sorry she ’ad be’aved so, and she was sure 
she’d been punished for it. She had ’eard noth¬ 
ing suspicious when she came in. She had gone 
straight to bed without looking round the flat. 
She wished she were dead. 








WHOSE BODY? 


135 


No, Mr. and Mrs. Thipps didn’t ’ardly evei* 
’ave any visitors; they kep’ themselves very re¬ 
tired. She had found the outside door bolted 
that morning as usual. She wouldn’t never be¬ 
lieve any ’arm.of Mr. Thipps. Thank you. Miss 
Horrocks. Call Georgiana Thipps, and the 
Coroner thought we had better light the gas. 

The examination of Mrs. Thipps provided 
more entertainment than enlightenment, afford¬ 
ing as it did an excellent example of the game 
called “cross questions and crooked answers.” 
After fifteen minutes’ suffering, both in voice and 
temper, the Coroner abandoned the struggle, 
leaving the lady with the last word. 

“You needn’t try to bully me, young man,” 
said that octogenarian with spirit, “settin’ there 
spoilin’ your stomach with them nasty jujubes.” 

At this point a young man arose in court and 
demanded to give evidence. Having explained 
that he was William Williams, glazier, he was 
sworn, and corroborated the evidence of Gladys 
Horrocks in the matter of her presence at the 
“Black Faced Ram” on the Monday night. They 
had returned to the flat rather before two, he 
thought, but certainly later than 1: 30. He was 
sorry that he had persuaded Miss Horrocks to 
come out with him when she didn’t ought. He 
had observed nothing of a suspicious nature in 
Prince of Wales Road at either visit. 




136 


WHOSE BODY? 


Inspector Sugg gave evidence of having been 
called in at about half past eight on Monday 
morning. He had considered the girl’s manner 
to be suspicious and had arrested her. On later 
information, leading him to suspect that the de¬ 
ceased might have been murdered that night, he 
had arrested Mr. Thipps. He had found no 
trace of breaking into the flat. There were marks 
on the bathroom window-sill which pointed to 
somebody having got in that way. There were 
no ladder marks or foot-marks in the yard; the 
yard was paved with asphalt. He had examined 
the roof, but found nothing on the roof. In his 
opinion the body had been brought into the flat 
previously and concealed till the evening by 
someone who had then gone out during the night 
by the bathroom window, with the connivance of 
the girl. In that case, why should not the girl 
have let the person out by the door? Well, it 
might have been so. Had he found traces of a 
body or a man or both having been hidden in the 
flat? He found nothing to show that they might 
not have been so concealed. What was the evi¬ 
dence that led him to suppose that the death had 
occurred that night? 

At this point Inspector Sugg appeared un¬ 
easy, and endeavoured to retire upon his profes¬ 
sional dignity. On being pressed, however, he 




WHOSE BODY? 


137 


admitted that the evidence in question had come 
to nothing. / 

One of the jurors: Was it the case that any fin¬ 
ger-marks had been left by the criminal ? 

Some marks had been found on the bath, but 
the criminal had worn gloves. 

The Coroner: Do you draw any conclusion 
from this fact as to the experience of the crim¬ 
inal? 

Inspector Sugg: Looks as if he was an old 
hand, sir. 

The Juror: Is that very consistent with the 
charge against Alfred Thipps, Inspector? 

The Inspector was silent. 

The Coroner: In the light of the evidence 
which you have just heard, do you still press the 
charge against Alfred Thipps and Gladys Hor- 
rocks? 

Inspector Sugg: I consider the whole set-out 
highly suspicious. Thipps’s story isn’t corrob¬ 
orated, and as for the girl Horrocks, how do we 
know this Williams ain’t in it as well? 

William Williams: Now, you drop that. I can 
bring a ’undred witnesses- 

The Coroner: Silence, if you please. I am sur¬ 
prised, Inspector, that you should make this sug¬ 
gestion in that manner. It is highly improper. 
By the way, can you tell us whether a police raid 
was actually carried out on the Monday night 





138 


WHOSE BODY? 


on any Night Club in the neighbourhood of St. 
Giles’s Circus? 

Inspector Sugg (sulkily): I believe there was ? 
something of the sort. 

The Coroner: You will, no doubt, enquire into 
the matter. I seem to recollect having seen some 
mention of it in the newspapers. Thank you. In¬ 
spector, that will do. 

Several witnesses having appeared and testi¬ 
fied to the characters of Mr. Thipps and Gladys 
Horrocks, the Coroner stated his intention of 
proceeding to the medical evidence. 

“Sir Julian Freke.” 

There was considerable stir in the court as the 
great specialist walked up to give evidence. He 
was not only a distinguished man, but a striking 
figure, with his wide shoulders, upright carriage 
and leonine head. His manner as he kissed the 
Book presented to him with the usual depreca¬ 
tory mumble by the Coroner’s officer, was that of 
a St. Paul condescending to humour the timid 
mumbo-jumbo of superstitious Corinthians. 

“So handsome, I always think,” whispered the 
Duchess to Mr. Parker, “just exactly like Wil¬ 
liam Morris, with that bush of hair and beard and 
those exciting eyes looking out of it—so splendid, 
these dear men always devoted to something or 
other—not but what I think socialism is a mistake 
■—of course it works with all those nice people, so 




WHOSE BODY? 


139 


good and happy in art linen and the weather al¬ 
ways perfect—Morris, I mean, you know—but 
so difficult in real life. Science is different—I’m 
sure if I had nerves I should go to Sir Julian just 
to look at him—eyes like that give one something 
to think about, and that’s what most of these peo¬ 
ple want, only I never had any—nerves, I mean. 
Don’t you think so?” 

“You are Sir Julian Freke,” said the Coroner, 
“and live at St. Luke’s House, Prince of Wales 
Road, Battersea, where you exercise a general 
direction over the surgical side of St. Luke’s 
Hospital?” 

Sir Julian assented briefly to this definition of 
his personality. 

“You were the first medical man to see the de¬ 
ceased?” 

£rr _J) 

I was. 

“And you have since conducted an examination 
in collaboration with Dr. Grimbold of Scotland 
Yard?” 

“I have.” 

“You are in agreement as to the cause of 
death?” 

“Generally speaking, yes.” 

“Will you communicate your impressions to 
the jury?” 

“I was engaged in research work in the dissect¬ 
ing room at St. Luke’s Hospital at about nine 




140 


WHOSE BODY? 


o’clock on Monday morning, when I was in¬ 
formed that Inspector Sugg wished to see me. 
He told me that the dead body of a man had been 
discovered under mysterious circumstances at 59 
Queen Caroline Mansions. He asked me whether 
it could be supposed to be a joke perpetrated by 
any of the medical students at the hospital. I 
was able to assure him, by an examination of the 
hospital’s books, that there was no subject miss¬ 
ing from the dissecting room.” 

“Who would be in charge of such bodies?” 

“William Watts, the dissecting-room atten¬ 
dant.” 

‘Is William Watts present?” enquired the 
Coroner of the officer. 

William Watts was present, and could be 
called if the Coroner thought it necessary. 

“I suppose no dead body would be delivered to 
the hospital without your knowledge. Sir 
Julian?” 

“Certainly not.” 

“Thank you. Will you proceed with your 
statement?” 

“Inspector Sugg then asked me whether I 
would send a medical man round to view the 
body. I said that I would go myself.” 

“Why did you do that?” 

“I confess to my share of ordinary Human curi¬ 
osity, Mr. Coroner.” 




WHOSE BODY? 


141 


Laughter from a medical student at the back 
of the room. 

“On arriving at the flat I found the deceased 
lying on his back in the bath. I examined him, 
and came to the conclusion that death had been 
caused by a blow on the back of the neck, dis¬ 
locating the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae, 
bruising the spinal cord and producing internal 
haemorrhage and partial paralysis of the brain. 
I judged the deceased to have been dead at least 
twelve hours, possibly more. I observed no other 
sign of violence of any kind upon the body. De¬ 
ceased was a strong, well-nourished man of about 
fifty to fifty-five years of age.” 

“In your opinion, could the blow have been 
self-inflicted?” 

“Certainly not. It had been made with a 
heavy, blunt instrument from behind, with great 
force and considerable judgment. It is quite im¬ 
possible that it was self-inflicted.” 

“Could it have been the result of an accident ?” 

“That is possible, of course.” 

“If, for example, the deceased had been look¬ 
ing out of window, and the sash had shut vio¬ 
lently down upon him?” 

“No; in that case there would have been signs 
of strangulation and a bruise upon the throat as 
well.” 

“But deceased might have been killed through 




142 


WHOSE BODY? 


a heavy weight accidentally falling upon him?” 

“He might.” 

“Was death instantaneous, in your opinion?” 

“It is difficult to say. Such a blow might very' 
well cause death instantaneously, or the patient 
might linger in a partially paralyzed condition 
for some time. In the present case I should be 
disposed to think that deceased might have lin¬ 
gered for some hours. I base my decision upon 
the condition of the brain revealed at the autopsy. 
I may say, however, that Dr. Grimbold and I are 
not in complete agreement on the point.” 

“I understand that a suggestion has been made 
as to the identification of the deceased. You are 
not in a position to identify him?” 

“Certainly not. I never saw him before. The 
suggestion to which you refer is a preposterous 
one, and ought never to have been made. I was 
not aware until this morning that it had been 
made; had it been made to me earlier I should 
have known how to deal with it, and I should like 
to express my strong disapproval of the unneces¬ 
sary shock and distress inflicted upon a lady with 
whom I have the honour to be acquainted.” 

The Coroner: It was not my fault, Sir Julian; 
I had nothing to do with it; I agree with you that 
it was unfortunate you were not consulted. 

The reporters scribbled busily, and the court 




WHOSE BODY? 


143 


asked each other what was meant, while the jury 
tried to look as if they knew already. 

“In the matter of the eyeglasses found upon 
the body, Sir Julian. Do these give any indica¬ 
tion to a medical man?” 

“They are somewhat unusual lenses; an oculist 
would be able to speak more definitely, but I will 
say for myself that I should have expected them 
to belong to an older man than the deceased.” 

“Speaking as a physician, who has had many 
opportunities of observing the human body, did 
you gather anything from the appearance of the 
deceased as to his personal habits?” 

“I should say that he was a man in easy cir¬ 
cumstances, but who had only recently come into 
money. His teeth are in a bad state, and his 
hands show signs of recent manual labor.” 

“An Australian colonist, for instance, who had 
made money?” 

“Something of that sort; of course, I could not 
say positively.” 

“Of course not. Thank you, Sir Julian.” 

Dr. Grimbold, called, corroborated his distin¬ 
guished colleague in every particular, except that, 
in his opinion, death had not occurred for several 
days after the blow. It was with the greatest 
hesitancy that he ventured to differ from Sir^ 
Julian Freke, and he might be wrong. It was 
difficult to tell in any case, and when he saw the 




144 


WHOSE BODY? 


body, deceased had been dead at least twenty- 
four hours, in his opinion. 

Inspector Sugg, recalled. Would he tell the 
jury what steps had been taken to identify the 
deceased? 

A description had been sent to every police 
station and had been inserted in all the news¬ 
papers. In view of the suggestion made by Sir 
Julian Freke, had inquiries been made at all the 
seaports? They had. And with no results? With 
no results at all. No one had come forward to 
identify the body? Plenty of people had come 
forward; but nobody had succeeded in identify¬ 
ing it. Had any effort been made to follow up 
the clue afforded by the eyeglasses? Inspector 
Sugg submitted that, having regard to the in¬ 
terests of justice, he would beg to be excused 
from answering that question. Might the jury 
see the eyeglasses ? The eyeglasses were handed 
to the jury. 

William Watts, called, confirmed the evidence 
of Sir Julian Freke with regard to dissecting- 
room subjects. He explained the system by which 
they were entered. They usually were supplied 
by the workhouses and free hospitals. They were 
under his sole charge. The young gentlemen 
could not possibly get the keys. Had Sir Julian 
Freke, or any of the house surgeons, the keys? 
No, not even Sir Julian Freke. The keys had 




WHOSE BODY? 


145 


remained in his possession on Monday night? 
They had. And, in any case, the enquiry was ir¬ 
relevant, as there was no body missing, nor ever 
had been. That was the case. 

The Coroner then addressed the jury, remind¬ 
ing them with some asperity that they were not 
there to gossip about who the deceased could or 
could not have been, but to give their opinion as 
to the cause of death. He reminded them that 
they should consider whether, according to the 
medical evidence, death could have been acciden¬ 
tal or self-inflicted or whether it was deliberate 
murder, or homicide. If they considered the evi¬ 
dence on this point insufficient, they could return 
an open verdict. In any case, their verdict could 
not prejudice any person; if they brought it in 
“murder,” all the whole evidence would have to 
be gone through again before the magistrate. He 
then dismissed them, with the unspoken adjura¬ 
tion to be quick about it. 

Sir Julian Freke, after giving his evidence, had 
caught the eye of the Duchess, and now came 
over and greeted her. 

“I haven’t seen you for an age,” said that lady. 
“How are you?” 

“Hard at work,” said the specialist. “ Just got 
my new book out. This kind of thing wastes time. 
Have you seen Lady Levy yet?” 

“No, poor dear,” said the Duchess. “I only 




146 


WHOSE BODY? 


came up this morning, for this. Mrs. Thipps is 
staying with me—one of Peter’s eccentricities, 
you know. Poor Christine! I must run round 
and see her. This is Mr. Parker,” she added, 
“who is investigating that case.” 

“Oh,” said Sir Julian, and paused. “Do you 
know,” he said in a low voice to Parker, “I am 
very glad to meet you. Have you seen Lady 
Levy yet?” 

“I saw her this morning.” 

“Did she ask you to go on with the inquiry?” 

“Yes,” said Parker; “she thinks,” he added, 
“that Sir Reuben may be detained in the hands 
of some financial rival or that perhaps some 
scoundrels are holding him to ransom.” 

“And is that your opinion?” asked Sir Julian. 

“I think it very likely,” said Parker, frankly. 

Sir Julian hesitated again. 

“I wish you would walk back with me when 
this is over,” he said. 

“I should be delighted,” said Parker. 

At this moment the jury returned and took 
their places, and there was a little rustle and 
hush. The Coroner addressed the foreman and en¬ 
quired if they were agreed upon their verdict. 

“We are agreed, Mr. Coroner, that deceased 
died of the effects of a blow upon the spine, but 




WHOSE BODY? 


147 


how that injury was inflicted we consider that 
there is not sufficient evidence to show.” 

Mr. Parker and Sir Julian Freke walked up 
the road together. 

“I had absolutely no idea until I saw Lady 
Levy this morning,” said the doctor, “that there 
was any idea of connecting this matter with the 
disappearance of Sir Reuben. The suggestion 
was perfectly monstrous, and could only have 
grown up in the mind of that ridiculous police 
officer. If I had had any idea what was in his 
mind I could have disabused him and avoided all 
this.” 

“I did my best to do so,” said Parker, “as soon 
as I was called in to the Levy case-” 

“Who called you in, if I may ask?” enquired 
Sir Julian. 

“Well, the household first of all, and then Sir 
Reuben’s uncle, Mr. Levy of Portman Square, 
wrote to me to go on with the investigation.” 

“And now Lady Levy has confirmed those in¬ 
structions ?” 

“Certainly,” said Parker in some surprise. 

Sir Julian was silent for a little time. 

“I’m afraid I was the first person to put the 
idea into Sugg’s head,” said Parker, rather peni^ 
tently. “When Sir Reuben disappeared, my first 
step, almost, was to hunt up all the street acci- 





148 


WHOSE BODY? 


dents and suicides and so on that had turned up 
during the day, and I went down to see this Bat¬ 
tersea Park body as a matter of routine. Of 
course, I saw that the thing was ridiculous as 
soon as I got there, but Sugg froze on to the idea 
*—and it’s true there was a good deal of resem¬ 
blance between the dead man and the portraits 
I’ve seen of Sir Reuben.” 

“A strong superficial likeness,” said Sir Julian. 
“The upper part of the face is a not uncommon 
type, and as Sir Reuben wore a heavy beard and 
there was no opportunity of comparing the 
mouths and chins, I can understand the idea oc¬ 
curring to anybody. But only to be dismissed 
at once. I am sorry,” he added, “as the whole 
matter has been painful to Lady Levy. You may 
know, Mr. Parker, that I am an old, though I 
should not call myself an intimate, friend of the 
Levys.” 

“I understood something of the sort.” 

“Yes. When I was a young man I—in short, 
Mr. Parker, I hoped once to marry Lady Levy.” 
<(Mr. Parker gave the usual sympathetic groan.) 
“I have never married, as you know,” pursued Sir 
Julian. “We have remained good friends. 3D 
have always done what I could to spare her pain.” 

“Believe me, Sir Julian,” said Parker, “that I 
sympathize very much with you and with Lady 
Levy, and that I did all I could to disabuse In- 




WHOSE BODY? 


149 


spector Sugg of this notion. Unhappily, the co¬ 
incidence of Sir Reuben’s being seen that evening 
in the Battersea Park Road-” 

“Ah, yes,” said Sir Julian. “Dear me, here we 
are at home. Perhaps you would come in for a 
moment, Mr. Parker, and have tea or a whisky- 
and-soda or something.” 

Parker promptly accepted this invitation, feel¬ 
ing that there were other things to be said. 

The two men stepped into a square, finely fur¬ 
nished hall with a fireplace on the same side as 
the door, and a staircase opposite. The dining¬ 
room door stood open on their right, and as Sir 
Julian rang the bell a man-servant appeared at 
the far end of the hall. 

“What will you take?” asked the doctor. 

“After that dreadfully cold place,” said Par¬ 
ker, “what I really want is gallons of hot tea, if 
you, as a nerve specialist, can bear the thought of 
it.” 

“Provided you allow of a judicious blend of 
China with it,” replied Sir Julian in the same 
tone, “I have no objection to make. Tea in the 
library at once,” he added to the servant, and led 
the way upstairs. 

“I don’t use the downstairs rooms much, ex¬ 
cept the dining-room,” he explained, as he ush¬ 
ered his guest into a small but cheerful library on 
the first floor, “This room leads out of my bed- 





150 


WHOSE BODY? 


room and is more convenient. I only live part of 
my time here, but it’s very handy for my research 
work at the hospital. That’s what I do there, 
mostly. It’s a fatal thing for a theorist, Mr. Par¬ 
ker, to let the practical work get behindhand. 
Dissection is the basis of all good theory and all 
correct diagnosis. One must keep one’s hand and 
eye in training. This place is far more important 
to me than Harley Street, and some day I shall 
abandon my consulting practice altogether and 
settle down here to cut up my subjects and write 
my books in peace. So many things in this life 
are a waste of time, Mr. Parker.” 

Mr. Parker assented to this. 

“Very often,” said Sir Julian, “the only time 
I get for any research work—necessitating as it 
does the keenest observation and the faculties at 
their acutest—has to be at night, after a long 
day’s work and by artificial light, which, mag¬ 
nificent as the lighting of the dissecting room here 
is, is always more trying to the eyes than daylight. 
Doubtless your own work has to be carried on 
under even more trying conditions.” 

“Yes, sometimes,” said Parker; “but then you 
see,” he added, “the conditions are, so to speak, 
part of the work.” 

“Quite so, quite so,” said Sir Julian; “you 
mean that the burglar, for example, does not 
demonstrate his methods in the light of day, or 







WHOSE BODY? 


151 


plant the perfect footmark in the middle of a 
damp patch of sand for you to analyze.” 

“Not as a rule,” said the detective, “but I have 
no doubt many of your diseases work quite as in¬ 
sidiously as any burglar.” 

“They do, they do,” said Sir Julian, laughing, 
“and it is my pride, as it is yours, to track them 
down for the good of society. The neuroses, you 
know, are particularly clever criminals—they 
break out into as many disguises as-” 

“As Leon Kestrel, the Master-Mummer,” sug¬ 
gested Parker, who read railway-stall detective 
stories on the principle of the ’busman’s holiday. 

“No doubt,” said Sir Julian, who did not, “and 
they cover up their tracks wonderfully. But 
when you can really investigate, Mr. Parker, and 
break up the dead, or for preference the living 
body with the scalpel, you always find the foot¬ 
marks—the little trail of ruin or disorder left by 
madness or disease or drink or any other similar 
pest. But the difficulty is to trace them back, 
merely by observing the surface symptoms—the 
hysteria, crime, religion, fear, shyness, conscience, 
or whatever it may be; just as you observe a theft 
•or a murder and look for the footsteps of the 
criminal, so I observe a fit of hysterics or an out¬ 
burst of piety and hunt for the little mechanical 
irritation which has produced it.” 

“You regard all these things as physical?” 





152 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Undoubtedly. I am not ignorant of the rise 
of another school of thought, Mr. Parker, but its 
exponents are mostly charlatans or self-deceivers. 
c Sie haben sich so weit darin eingeheimnisst’ that, 
like Sludge the Medium, they are beginning to 
believe their own nonsense. I should like to have 
the exploring of some of their brains, Mr. Par¬ 
ker; I would show you the little faults and land¬ 
slips in the cells—the misfiring and short-circuit¬ 
ing of the nerves, which produce these notions 
and these books. At least,” he added, gazing 
sombrely at his guest, “at least, if I could not 
quite show you to-day, I shall be able to do so 
to-morrow—or in a year’s time—or before I die.” 

He sat for some minutes gazing into the fire, 
while the red light played upon his tawny beard 
and struck out answering gleams from his com¬ 
pelling eyes. 

Parker drank tea in silence, watching him. On 
the whole, however, he remained but little inter¬ 
ested in the causes of nervous phenomena, and 
his mind strayed to Lord Peter, coping with the 
redoubtable Crimplesham down in Salisbury. 
Lord Peter had wanted him to come: that meant, 
either that Crimplesham was proving recalcitrant 
or that a clue wanted following. But Bunter had 
said that to-morrow would do, and it was just as 
well. After all the Battersea affair was not Par¬ 
ker’s case; he had already wasted valuable time 




WHOSE BODY? 


153 


attending an inconclusive inquest, and he really 
ought to get on with his legitimate work. There 
was still Levy’s secretary to see and the little 
matter of the Peruvian Oil to be looked into. He 
looked at his watch. 

“I am very much afraid—if you will excuse 
me—’—” he murmured. 

Sir Julian came back with a start to the con¬ 
sideration of actuality. 

“Your work calls you?” he said smiling. “Well, 
I can understand that. I won’t keep you. But I 
wanted to say something to you in connection 
with your present inquiry—only I hardly know— 
I hardly like-” 

Parker sat down again, and banished every in¬ 
dication of hurry from his face and attitude. 

“I shall be very grateful for any help you can 
give me,” he said. 

“I’m afraid it’s more in the nature of hin¬ 
drance,” said Sir Julian, with a short laugh. “It’s 
a case of destroying a clue for you, and a breach 
of professional confidence on my side. But since 
—accidentally—a certain amount has come out, 
perhaps the whole had better do so.” 

Mr. Parker made the encouraging noise which, 
among laymen, supplies the place of the priest’s 
insinuating, “Yes, my son?” 

“Sir Reuben Levy’s visit on Monday night 
was to me,” said Sir Julian. 






154 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Yes?” said Mr. Parker, without expression. 

“Pie found cause for certain grave suspicions 
concerning his health,” said Sir Julian, slowly, 
as though weighing how much he could in honour 
disclose to a stranger. “He came to me, in pref¬ 
erence to his own medical man, as he was particu¬ 
larly anxious that the matter should be kept from 
his wife. As I told you, he knew me fairly well, 
and Lady Levy had consulted me about a nerv¬ 
ous disorder in the summer.” 

“Did he make an appointment with you?” 
asked Parker. 

“I beg your pardon,” said the other, absently. 

w Did he make an appointment?” 

“An appointment? Oh, no! He turned up 
suddenly in the evening after dinner when I 
wasn’t expecting him. I took him up here and 
examined him, and he left me somewhere about 
ten o’clock, I should think.” 

“May I ask what was the result of your exami¬ 
nation?” 

“Why do you want to know?” 

“It might illuminate—well, conjecture as to his 
subsequent conduct,” said Parker, cautiously. 
This story seemed to have little coherence with 
the rest of the business, and he wondered whether 
coincidence was alone responsible for Sir Reu¬ 
ben’s disappearance on the same night that he 
visited the doctor. 





WHOSE BODY? 


1 55 


“I see,” said Sir Julian. "Yes. Well, I will 
tell you in confidence that I saw grave grounds 
of suspicion, but as yet, no absolute certainty of 
mischief.” 

"Thank you. Sir Reuben left you at ten 
o’clock?” 

"Then or thereabouts. I did not at first men¬ 
tion the matter as it was so very much Sir Reu¬ 
ben’s wish to keep his visit to me secret, and there 
was no question of accident in the street or any¬ 
thing of that kind, since he reached home safely 
at midnight.” 

"Quite so,” said Parker. 

"It would have been, and is, a breach of con¬ 
fidence,” said Sir Julian, "and I only tell you 
now because Sir Reuben was accidentally seen, 
and because I would rather tell you in private 
than have you ferreting round here and question¬ 
ing my servants, Mr. Parker. You will excuse 
my frankness.” 

"Certainly,” said Parker. “I hold no brief for 
the pleasantness of my profession, Sir Julian. I 
am very much obliged to you for telling me this. 
I might otherwise have wasted valuable time fol¬ 
lowing up a false trail.” 

"I am sure I need not ask you, in your turn, 
to respect this confidence,” said the doctor. "To 
publish the matter abroad could only harm Sir 




156 


WHOSE BODY? 


Reuben and pain his wife, besides placing me in 
no favourable light with my patients.’' 

“I promise to keep the thing to myself,” said 
Parker, “except of course,” he added hastily, 
“that I must inform my colleague.” 

“You have a colleague in the case?” 

“I have.” 

“What sort of person is he?” 

“He will be perfectly discreet, Sir Julian.” 

“Is he a police officer?” 

“You need not be afraid of your confidence 
getting into the records at Scotland Yard.” 

“I see that you know how to be discreet, Mr. 
Parker.” 

“We also have our professional etiquette, Sir 
Julian.” 

On returning to Great Ormond Street, Mr. 
Parker found a wire awaiting him, which said: 
“Do not trouble to come. All well. Returning 

to-morrowt Wv&ssx” 




VII 


A 


On returning to the flat just before lunch-time 
on the following morning, after a few confirma¬ 
tory researches in Balham and the neighbourhood 
of Victoria Station, Lord Peter was greeted at 
the door by Mr. Bunter (who had gone straight 
home from Waterloo) with a telephone message 
and a severe and nursemaid-like eye. 

“Lady SwafFham rang up, my lord, and said 
she hoped your lordship had not forgotten you 
were lunching with her.” 

“I have forgotten, Bunter, and I mean to for¬ 
get. I trust you told her I had succumbed to 
lethargic encephalitis suddenly, no flowers by re¬ 
quest.” 

“Lady S waff ham said, my lord, she was count¬ 
ing on you. She met the Duchess of Denver yes¬ 
terday-” 

“If my sister-in-law’s there I won’t go, that’s 
flat,” said Lord Peter. 

“I beg your pardon, my lord, the elder 
Duchess.” 

“What’s she doing in town?” 

“I imagine she came up for the inquest, my 
lord.” 

“Oh, yes—we missed that, Bunter.” 

157 



158 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Yes, my lord. Her Grace is lunching with 
Lady Swaffham.” 

“Bunter, I can’t. I can’t, really. Say I’m in 
bed with whooping cough, and ask my mother to 
come round after lunch.” 

“Very well, my lord. Mrs. Tommy Frayle 
will be at Lady Swaffham’s, my lord, and Mr. 
Milligan—” 

“Mr. Who?” 

“Mr. John P. Milligan, my lord, and-” 

“Good God, Bunter, why didn’t you say so be¬ 
fore? Have I time to get there before he does? 
All right. I’m off. With a taxi I can just-” 

“Not in those trousers, my lord,” said Mr. 
Bunter, blocking the way to the door with defer¬ 
ential firmness. 

“Oh, Bunter,” pleaded his lordship, “do let me 
-—just this once. You don’t know how impor¬ 
tant it is.” 

“Not on any account, my lord. It would be as 
much as my place is worth.” 

“The trousers are all right, Bunter.” 

“Not for Lady S waff ham’s, my lord. Besides, 
your lordship forgets the man that ran against 
you with a milk can at Salisbury.” 

And Mr. Bunter laid an accusing finger on a 
slight stain of grease showing across the light 
cloth. 

“I wish to God I’d never let you grow into a 







WHOSE BODY? 


1.59 

- 


privileged family retainer, Bunter,” said Lord 
Peter, bitterly, dashing his walking-stick into the 
umbrella-stand. “You’ve no conception of the 
mistakes my mother may be making.” 

Mr. Bunter smiled grimly and led his victim 
away. 

When an immaculate Lord Peter was ushered, 
rather late for lunch, into Lady S waff ham’s 
drawing-room, the Dowager Duchess of Denver 
was seated on a sofa, plunged in intimate conver¬ 
sation with Mr. John P. Milligan of Chicago. 

“I’m vurry pleased to meet you, Duchess,” 
had been that financier’s opening remark, “to 
thank you for your exceedingly kind invitation. 
I assure you it’s a compliment I deeply appre¬ 
ciate.” 

The Duchess beamed at him, while conducting 
a rapid rally of all her intellectual forces. 

“Do come and sit down and talk to me, Mr. 
Milligan,” she said. “I do so love talking to you 
great business men—let me see, is it a railway 
king you are or something about puss-in-the-cor- 
ner—at least, I don’t mean that exactly, but that 
game one used to play with cards, all about 
wheat and oats, and there was a bull and a bear, 
too—or was it a horse ?—no, a bear, because I re¬ 
member one always had to try and get rid of it 
and it used to get so dreadfully crumpled and 
(torn, poor thing, always being handed about, one 





160 


WHOSE BODY? 


got to recognize it, and then one had to buy a 
new pack—so foolish it must seem to you, know¬ 
ing the real thing, and dreadfully noisy, but 
really excellent for breaking the ice with rather 
stiff people who didn’t know each other—I’m 
quite sorry it’s gone out.” 

Mr. Milligan sat down. 

“Well, now,” he said, “I guess it’s as interest¬ 
ing for us business men to meet British aristo¬ 
crats as it is for Britishers to meet American rail¬ 
way kings, Duchess. And I guess I’ll make as 
many mistakes talking your kind of talk as you 
would make if you were tryin’ to run a corner 
in wheat in Chicago. Fancy now, I called that 
fine lad of yours Lord Wimsey the other day, 
and he thought I’d mistaken him for his brother. 
That made me feel rather green.” 

This was an unhoped-for lead. The Duchess 
walked warily. 

“Dear boy,” she said, “I am so glad you met 
him, Mr. Milligan. Both my sons are a great 
comfort to me, you know, though ,of course, Ger¬ 
ald is more conventional—just the right kind of 
person for the House of Lords, you know, and a 
splendid farmer. I can’t see Peter down at Den¬ 
ver half so well, though he is always going to all 
the right things in town, and very amusing some¬ 
times, poor boy.” 

“I was very much gratified by Lord Peter’s 





WHOSE BODY? 


161 


suggestion,” pursued Mr. Milligan, “for which I 
understand you are responsible, and I’ll surely be 
yery pleased to come any day you like, though I 
think you’re flattering me too much.” 

“Ah, well,” said the Duchess, “I don’t know if 
you’re the best judge of that, Mr. Milligan. Not 
that I know anything about business myself,” she 
added. “I’m rather old-fashioned for these days; 
you know, and I can’t pretend to do more than 
know a nice man when I see him; for the other 
things I rely on my son.” 

The accent of this speech was so flattering that 
Mr. Milligan purred almost audibly, and said: 

“Well, Duchess, I guess that’s where a lady 
with a real, beautiful, old-fashioned soul has the 
advantage of these modern young blatherskites— 
there aren’t many men who wouldn’t be nice—to 
her, and even then, if they aren’t rock-bottom she 
can see through them.” 

“But that leaves me where I was,” thought the 
Duchess. “I believe,” she said aloud, “that I 
ought to be thanking you in the name of the vicar 
of Duke’s Denver for a very munificent cheque 
which reached him yesterday for the Church Res¬ 
toration Fund. He was so delighted and aston¬ 
ished, poor dear man.” 

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Mr. Milligan, “we 
haven’t any fine old crusted buildings like yours 
over on our side, so it’s a privilege to be allowed 





162 


WHOSE BODY? 


to drop a little kerosene into the worm-holes when 
we hear of one in the old country suffering from 
senile decay. So when your lad told me about 
Duke’s Denver I took the liberty to subscribe 
without waiting for the Bazaar.” 

“I’m sure it was very kind of you,” said the 
Duchess. “You are coming to the Bazaar, then?” 
she continued, gazing into his face appealingly. 

“Sure thing,” said Mr. Milligan, with great 
promptness. “Lord Peter said you’d let me know 
for sure about the date, but we can always make 
time for a little bit of good work anyway. Of 
course I’m hoping to be able to avail myself of 
your kind invitation to stop, but if I’m rushed. 
I’ll manage anyhow to pop over and speak my 
piece and pop back again.” 

“I hope so very much,” said the Duchess. “I 
must see what can be done about the date—of 
course, I can’t promise-” 

“No, no,” said Mr. Milligan heartily. “I 
know what these things are to fix up. And then 
there’s not only me—there’s Nat Rothschild and 
Cadbury, and all the other names your son men¬ 
tioned, to be consulted.” 

The Duchess turned pale at the thought that 
any one of these illustrious persons might some 
time turn up in somebody’s drawing-room, but 
by this time she had dug herself in comfortably, 
and was even beginning to find her range. 

“I can’t say how grateful we are to you,” she 





WHOSE BODY? 


163 


said, “it will be such a treat. Do tell me what 
you think of saying.” 
i “Well-” began Mr. Milligan. 

Suddenly everybody was standing up and a 
penitent voice was heard to say: 
i “Really, most awfully sorry, y’know—hope 
you'll forgive me, Lady S waff ham, what? Dear 
lady, could I possibly forget an invitation from 
you ? Fact is, I had to go an’ see a man down in 
Salisbury—absolutely true, ’pon my word, and 
the fellow wouldn’t let me get away. I’m simply 
grovellin’ before you, Lady S waff ham. Shall I 
go an’ eat my lunch in the corner?” 

Lady Swaffham gracefully forgave the culprit. 

“Your dear mother is here,” she said. 

“How do, Mother?” said Lord Peter, uneasily* 

“How are you, dear?” replied the Duchess. 
“You really oughtn’t to have turned up just yet. 
Mr. Milligan was just going to tell me what a 
thrilling speech he’s preparing for the Bazaar, 
when you came and interrupted us.” 

Conversation at lunch turned, not unnaturally, 
on the Battersea inquest, the Duchess giving a 
vivid impersonation of Mrs. Thipps being inter¬ 
rogated by the Coroner. 

“ ‘Did you hear anything unusual in the night?’ 
says the little man, leaning forward and scream¬ 
ing at her, and so crimson in the face and his ears 
sticking out so—just like a cherubim in that poem. 






164 


WHOSE BODY? 


— - - " . . < 

of Tennyson’s—or is a cherub blue?—perhaps it’s 
seraphim I mean—anyway, you know what I 
mean, all eyes, with little wings on its head. And 
dear old Mrs. Thipps saying, ‘Of course I have, 
any time these eighty years,’ and such a sensation 
in court till they found out she thought he’d said, 
‘Do you sleep without a light?’ and everybody 
laughing, and then the Coroner said quite loudly, 
‘Damn the woman,’ and she heard that, I can’t 
think why, and said: ‘Don’t you get swearing, 
young man, sitting there in the presence of Prov¬ 
idence, as you may say. I don’t know what 
young people are coming to nowadays’—and he’s 
sixty if he’s a day, you know,” said the Duchess. 

By a natural transition, Mrs. Tommy Frayle 
referred to the man who was hanged for murder¬ 
ing three brides in a bath. 

“I always thought that was so ingenious,” she 
said, gazing soulfully at Lord Peter, “and do 
you know, as it happened, Tommy had just made 
me insure my life, and I got so frightened, I gave 
up my morning bath and took to having it in the 
afternoon when he was in the House—I mean, 
when he was not in the house—not at home, I 
mean.” 

“Dear lady,” said Lord Peter, reproachfully, 
“I have a distinct recollection that all those brides 
were thoroughly unattractive. But it was an un¬ 
commonly ingenious plan—the first time of 







WHOSE BODY? 


165 


askin’—only he shouldn’t have repeated himself.” 

“One demands a little originality in these days, 
even from murderers,” said Lady Swaffham. 
“Like dramatists, you know—so much easier in 
Shakespeare’s time, wasn’t it? Always the same 
girl dressed up as a man, and even that borrowed 
from Boccaccio or Dante or somebody. I’m sure 
if I’d been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute 
I saw a slim-legged young page-boy I’d have 
said: ‘Ods-bodikins! There’s that girl again!’” 

“That’s just what happened, as a matter of 
fact,” said Lord Peter. “You see, Lady Swaff¬ 
ham, if ever you want to commit a murder, the 
thing you’ve got to do is to prevent people from 
associatin’ their ideas. Most people don’t asso¬ 
ciate anythin’—their ideas just roll about like so 
many dry peas on a tray, makin’ a lot of noise 
and goin’ nowhere, but once you begin lettin’ ’em 
string their peas into a necklace, it’s goin’ to be 
strong enough to hang you, what?” 

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Tommy Frayle, with a 
little scream, “what a blessing it is none of my; 
friends have any ideas at all!” 

“Y’see,” said Lord Peter, balancing a piece 
of duck on his fork and frowning, “it’s only in 
Sherlock Holmes and stories like that, that peo¬ 
ple think things out logically. Or’nar’ly, if some¬ 
body tells you somethin’ out of the way, you just 
say, ‘By Jove!’ or ‘How sad!’ an’ leave it at 
that, an’ half the time you forget about it, ’nless 




166 


WHOSE BODY? 


somethin’ turns up afterwards to drive it home. 
F’r instance. Lady Swaffham, I told you when 
I came in that I’d been down to Salisbury, ’n’ 
that’s true, only I don’t suppose it impressed you 
much; ’n’ I don’t suppose it’d impress you much 
if you read in the paper to-morrow of a tragic 
discovery of a dead lawyer down in Salisbury, 
but if I went to Salisbury again next week ’n’ 
there was a Salisbury doctor found dead the day 
after, you might begin to think I was a bird of 
ill omen for Salisbury residents; and if I went 
there again the week after, ’n’ you heard next 
day that the see of Salisbury had fallen vacant 
suddenly, you might begin to wonder what took 
me to Salisbury, an’ why I’d never mentioned be¬ 
fore that I had friends down there, don’t you 
see, an’ you might think of goin’ down to Salis¬ 
bury yourself, an’ askin’ all kinds of people if 
they’d happened to see a young man in plum- 
coloured socks hangin’ round the Bishop’s 
Palace.” 

“I daressay I should,” said Lady Swaffham. 

“Quite. An’ if you found that the lawyer and 
the doctor had once upon a time been in business 
at Poggleton-on-the-Marsh when the Bishop had 
been vicar there, you’d begin to remember you’d 
once heard of me payin’ a visit to Poggleton-on- 
the-Marsh a long time ago, an’ you’d begin to 
look up the parish registers there an’ discover 
I’d been married under an assumed name by 






WHOSE BODY? 


167, 


the vicar to the widow of a wealthy farmer, who’d 
died suddenly of peritonitis, as certified by the 
doctor, after the lawyer’d made a will leavin’ me 
all her money, and then you’d begin to think I 
might have very good reasons for gettin’ rid of 
such promisin’ blackmailers as the lawyer, the 
doctor an’ the bishop. Only, if I hadn’t started 
an association in your mind by gettin’ rid of ’em 
all in the same place, you’d never have thought 
of goin’ to Poggleton-on-the-Marsh, ’n’ you 
wouldn’t even have remembered I’d ever been 
there.” 

“Were you ever there. Lord Peter?” enquired 
Mrs. Tommy, anxiously. 

“I don’t think so,” said Lord Peter, “the name 
threads no beads in my mind. But it might, any 
day, you know.” 

“But if you were investigating a crime,” said 
Lady Swaffham, “you’d have to begin by the 
usual things, I suppose—finding out what the 
person had been doing, and who’d been to call, 
and looking for a motive, wouldn’t you?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter, “but most of us 
have such dozens of motives for murderin’ all 
sorts of inoffensive people. There’s lots of 
people I’d like to murder, wouldn’t you?” 

“Heaps,” said Lady Swaffham. “There’s that 
dreadful-—perhaps I’d better not say it, though, 
for fear you should remember it later on.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Peter, 





168 


WHOSE BODY? 


amiably. “You never know. It’d be beastly 
awkward if the person died suddenly to-morrow.” 

“The difficulty with this Battersea case, I 
guess,” said Mr. Milligan, “is that nobody seems 
to have any associations with the gentleman in 
the bath.” 

“So hard on poor Inspector Sugg,” said the 
Duchess. “I quite felt for the man, having to 
stand up there and answer a lot of questions when 
he had nothing at all to say.” 

Lord Peter applied himself to the duck, having 
got a little behindhand. Presently he heard 
somebody ask the Duchess if she had seen Lady 
Levy. 

“She is m great distress,” said the woman who 
had spoken, a Mrs. Freemantle, “though she 
clings to the hope that he will turn up. I sup¬ 
pose you knew him, Mr* .Milligan—know him, I 
should say, for I hope he’s still alive somewhere.” 

Mrs. Freemantle was the wife of an eminent? 
railway director, and celebrated for her ignorance 
of the world of finance. Her faux pas in this 
connection enlivened the tea parties of city men’s 


wives. 

“Well, I’ve dined with him,” said Mr. Milli¬ 
gan, good-naturedly. “I think he and I’ve done 
our best to ruin each other, Mrs. Freemantle. If 
this were the States,” he added, “I’d be much 
inclined to suspect myself of having put Sir 
Reuben in a safe place. But we can’t do business 




WHOSE BODY? 


169 


that way in your old country; no, ma’am/’ 

“It must be exciting work doing business in 
America,” said Lord Peter. 

“It is,” said Mr. Milligan. “I guess my 
brothers are having a good time there now. I’ll 
be joining them again before long, as soon as I’ve 
fixed up a little bit of work for them on this side.” 

“Well, you mustn’t go till after my bazaar,” 
said the Duchess. 

Lord Peter spent the afternoon in a vain hunt 
for Mr. Parker. He ran him down eventually 
after dinner in Great Ormond Street. 

Parker was sitting in an elderly but affectionate 
armchair, with his feet on the mantelpiece, relax¬ 
ing his mind with a modem commentary on the 
Epistle to the Galatians. He received Lord 
Peter with quiet pleasure, though without rap¬ 
turous enthusiasm, and mixed him a whisky-and- 
soda. Peter took up the book his friend had laid 
down and glanced over the pages. 

“All these men work with a bias in their minds, 
one way or other,” he said; “they find what they 
are looking for.” 

“Oh, they do,” agreed the detective, “but one 
learns to discount that almost automatically, you 
know. When I was at college, I was all on the 
other side—Conybeare and Bobertson and Drews 
and those people, you know, till I found they 
were all so busy looking for a burglar whom no- 




170 


WHOSE BODY? 


body had ever seen, that they couldn’t recognize 
the footprints of the household, so to speak. Then* 
I spent two years learning to be cautious.” 

“Hum,” said Lord Peter, “theology must be 
good exercise for the brain then, for you’re easily 
the most cautious devil I know. But I say, do 
go on reading—it’s a shame for me to come and 
root you up in your off-time like this.” 

“It’s all right, old man,” said Parker. 

The two men sat silent for a little, and then 
Lord Peter said: 

“D’you like your job?” 

The detective considered the question, and re¬ 
plied : 

“Yes—yes, I do. I know it to be useful, and 
I am fitted to it. I do it quite well—not with 
inspiration, perhaps, but sufficiently well to take 
a pride in it. It is full of variety and it forces 
one to keep up to the mark and not get slack. 
And there’s a future to it. Yes, I like it. Why?” 

“Oh, nothing,” said Peter. “It’s a hobby to 
me, you see. I took it up when the bottom of 
things was rather knocked out for me, because it 
was so damned exciting, and the worst of it is, I 
enjoy it—up to a point. If it was all on paper 
I’d enjoy every bit of it. I love the beginning 
of a job—when one doesn’t know any of the 
people and it’s just exciting and amusing. But 
if it comes to really running down a live person 
and getting him hanged, or even quodded, poor 






WHOSE BODY? 


171 


devil, there don’t seem as if there was any excuse 
for me buttin’ in, since I don’t have to make my 
livin’ by it. And I feel as if I oughtn’t ever to 
find it amusin’. But I do.” 

Parker gave this speech his careful attention. 

“I see what you mean,” he said. 

“There’s old Milligan, f’r instance,” said Lord 
Peter. “On paper, nothin’ would he funnier 
than to catch old Milligan out. But he’s rather 
a decent old bird to talk to. Mother likes him. 
He’s taken a fancy to me. It’s awfully enter¬ 
tainin’ goin’ and pumpin’ him with stuff about 
a bazaar for church expenses, but when he’s so 
jolly pleased about it and that, I feel a worm. 
S’pose old Milligan has cut Levy’s throat and 
plugged him into the Thames. It ain’t my busi¬ 
ness.” 

“It’s as much yours as anybody’s,” said Par¬ 
ker; “it’s no better to do it for money than to do 
it for nothing.” 

“Yes, it is,” said Peter stubbornly. “Havin' 
to live is the only excuse there is for doin’ that 
kind of thing.” 

“Well, but look here!” said Parker. “If Milli¬ 
gan has cut poor old Levy’s throat for no reason 
except to make himself richer, I don’t see why 
he should buy himself off by giving <£1,000 to 
Duke’s Denver church roof, or why he should be 
forgiven just because he’s childishly vain, or 
childishly snobbish.” 





172 


WHOSE BODY? 


“That’s a nasty one,” said Lord Peter. 

“Well, if you like, even because he has taken a 
fancy to you.” 

“No, but-” 

“Look here, Wimsey—do you think he has 
murdered Levy?” 

“Well, he may have.” 

“But do you think he has?” 

“I don’t want to think so.” 

“Because he has taken a fancy to you?” 

“Well, that biases me, of course-” 

“I daresay it’s quite a legitimate bias. You 
don’t think a callous murderer would be likely to 
take a fancy to you?” 

“Well—besides, I’ve taken rather a fancy to 
him.” 

“I daresay that’s quite legitimate, too. You’ve 
observed him and made a subconscious deduction 
from your observations, and the result is, you 
don’t think he did it. Well, why not? You’re 
entitled to take that into account.” 

“But perhaps I’m wrong and he did do it.” 

“Then why let your vainglorious conceit in 
your own power of estimating character stand in 
the way of unmasking the singularly cold-blooded 
murder of an innocent and lovable man?” 

“I know—but I don’t feel I’m playing the 
game somehow.” 

“Look here, Peter,” said the other with some 
earnestness, “suppose you get this playing- 









WHOSE BODY? 


173 


fields-of-Eton complex out of your system once 
and for all. There doesn’t seem to be much doubt 
that something unpleasant has happened to Sir 
Reuben Levy. Call it murder, to strengthen 
the argument. If Sir Reuben has been murdered, 
is it a game? and is it fair to treat it as a game?” 

“That’s what I’m ashamed of, really,” said 
Lord Peter. “It is a game to me, to begin with, 
and I go on cheerfully, and then I suddenly see 
that somebody is going to be hurt, and I want to 
get out of it.” 

“Yes, yes, I know,” said the detective, “but 
that’s because you’re thinking about your atti¬ 
tude. You want to be consistent, you want to 
look pretty, you want to swagger debonairly 
through a comedy of puppets or else to stalk 
magnificently through a tragedy of human sor¬ 
rows and things. But that’s childish. If you’ve 
any duty to society in the way of finding out the 
truth about murders, you must do it in any atti¬ 
tude that comes handy. You want to be elegant 
and detached? That’s all right, if you find the 
truth out that way, but it hasn’t any value in 
itself, you know. You want to look dignified and 
consistent—what’s that got to do with it? You 
want to hunt down a murderer for the sport of the 
thing and then shake hands with him and say, 
‘Well played—hard luck—you shall have your 
revenge to-morrow!’ Well, you can’t do it like 
that. Life’s not a football match. You want to 




174 


WHOSE BODY? 


be a sportsman. You can’t be a sportsman. 
You’re a responsible person.” 

“I don’t think you ought to read so much 
theology,” said Lord Peter. “It has a brutalizing 
influence.” 

He got up and paced about the room, looking 
idly over the bookshelves. Then he sat down 
again, filled and lit his pipe, and said: 

“Well, I’d better tell you about the ferocious 
and hardened Crimplesham.” 

He detailed his visit to Salisbury. Once as¬ 
sured of his bona tides, Mr. Crimplesham had 
given him the fullest details of his visit to town. 

“And I’ve substantiated it all,” groaned Lord 
Peter, “and unless he’s corrupted half Balham, 
there’s no doubt he spent the night there. And 
the afternoon was really spent with the bank peo¬ 
ple. And half the residents of Salisbury seem to 
have seen him off on Monday before lunch. And 
nobody but his own family or young Wicks seems 
to have anything to gain by his death. And even 
if young Wicks wanted to make away with him, 
it’s rather far-fetched to go and murder an un¬ 
known man in Thipps’s place in order to stick 
Ciimplesham’s eyeglasses on his nose.” 

“Where was young Wicks on Monday?” asked 
Parker. 

“At a dance given by the Precentor,” said 
Lord Peter, wildly. “David—his name is David 





WHOSE BODY? 


175 


—dancing before the ark of the Lord in the face 
of the whole Cathedral Close.” 

There was a pause. 

“Tell me about the inquest,” said Wimsey. 

Parker obliged with a summary of the evi¬ 
dence. 

“Do you believe the body could have been con¬ 
cealed in the flat after all?” he asked. “I know 
we looked, but I suppose we might have missed 
something.” 

“We might. But Sugg looked as well.” 

“Sugg!” 

“You do Sugg an injustice,” said Lord Peter; 
“if there had been any signs of Thipps’s com¬ 
plicity in the crime, Sugg would have found 
them.” 

“Why?” 

“Why? Because he was looking for them. He’s 
like your commentators on Galatians. He thinks 
that either Thipps, or Gladys Horrocks, or 
Gladys Horrocks’s young man did it. Therefore 
he found marks on the window sill where Gladys 
Horrocks’s young man might have come in or 
handed something in to Gladys Horrocks. He 
didn’t find any signs on the roof, because he 
wasn’t looking for them.” 

“But he went over the roof before me.” 

“Yes, but only in order to prove that there were 
no marks there. He reasons like this: Gladys 
Horrocks’s young man is a glazier. Glaziers 




176 


WHOSE BODY? 


come on ladders. Glaziers have ready access to 
ladders. Therefore Gladys Horrocks’s young 
man had ready access to a ladder. Therefore 
Gladys Horrocks’s young man came on a ladder. 
Therefore there will be marks on the window sill 
and none on the roof. Therefore he finds marks 
on the window sill but none on the roof. He 
finds no marks on the ground, but he thinks he 
would have found them if the yard didn’t happen 
to be paved with asphalt. Similarly, he thinks 
Mr. Thipps may have concealed the body in the 
box-room or elsewhere. Therefore you may be 
sure he searched the box-room and all the other 
places for signs of occupation. If they had been 
there he would have found them, because he was 
looking for them. Therefore, if he didn’t find 
them it’s because they weren’t there.” 

“All right,” said Parker, “stop talking. I 
believe you.” 

He went on to detail the medical evidence. 

“By the way,” said Lord Peter, “to skip across 
for a moment to the other case, has it occurred to 
you that perhaps Levy was going out to see 
Ereke on Monday night?” 

“He was; he did,” said Parker, rather unex¬ 
pectedly, and proceeded to recount his interview 
with the nerve-specialist. 

“Humph!” said Lord Peter. “I say, Parker, 
these are funny cases, ain’t they? Every line of 




WHOSE BODY? 


177 


enquiry seems to peter out. It’s awfully exciting 
up to a point, you know, and then nothing comes 
of it. It’s like rivers getting lost in the sand.” 

“Yes,” said Parker. “And there’s another one 
I lost this morning.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Oh, I was pumping Levy’s secretary about 
his business. I couldn’t get much that seemed 
important except further details about the Ar¬ 
gentine and so on. Then I thought I’d just ask 
round in the City about those Peruvian Oil shares, 
but Levy hadn’t even heard of them, so far as I 
could make out. I routed out the brokers, and 
found a lot of mystery and concealment, as one 
always does, you know, when somebody’s been 
rigging the market, and at last I found one name 
at the back of it. But it wasn’t Levy’s.” 

“No? Whose was it?” 

“Oddly enough, Freke’s. It seems mysterious. 
He bought a lot of shares last week, in a secret 
kind of way, a few of them in his own name, and 
then quietly sold ’em out on Tuesday at a small 
profit—a few hundreds, not worth going to all 
that trouble about, you wouldn’t think.” 

“Shouldn’t have thought he ever went in for 
that kind of gamble.” 

“He doesn’t as a rule. That’s the funny part 
of it.” 

“Well, you never know,” said Lord Peter; 
“people do these things, just to prove to them- 




WHOSE BODY? 


178 


selves or somebody else that they could make a 
fortune that way if they liked. I’ve done it my¬ 
self in a small way.” 

He knocked out his pipe and rose to go. 

“I say, old man,” he said suddenly, as Parker 
was letting him out, “does it occur to you that 
Freke’s story doesn’t fit in awfully well with what 
Anderson said about the old boy having been so 
jolly at dinner on Monday night? Would you 
be, if you thought you’d got anything of that 
sort?” 

“No, I shouldn’t,” said Parker; “but,” he 
added with his habitual caution, “some men wall 1 
jest in the dentist’s waiting-room. You, for one.” 

“Well, that’s true,” said Lord Peter, and went 
downstairs. 








VIII 


Lord Peter reached home about midnight, feel¬ 
ing extraordinarily wakeful and alert. Some¬ 
thing was jigging and worrying in his brain; it 
felt like a hive of bees, stirred up by a stick. He 
felt as though he were looking at a complicated 
riddle, of which he had once been told the answer 
but had forgotten it and was always on the point 
of remembering. 

“Somewhere,” said Lord Peter to himself, 
“somewhere IVe got the key to these two things. 
I know IVe got it, only I can’t remember what it 
is. Somebody said it. Perhaps I said it. I can’t 
remember where, but I know I’ve got it. GqVo 
bed, Bunter, I shall sit up a little. I’ll just sup 
on a dressing-gown.” 

Before the fire he sat down with his pipe in his 
mouth and his jazz-coloured peacocks gathered 
about him. He traced out this line and that line 
of investigation—rivers running into the sand. 
They ran out from the thought of Levy, last seen 
at ten o’clock in Prince of Wales Hoad. They 
ran back from the picture of the grotesque dead 
man in Mr. Thipps’s bathroom—they ran over 
the roof, and were lost—lost in the sand. Rivers 
running into the sand—rivers running under¬ 
ground, very far down— 

179 


180 


WHOSE BODY? 


Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 
Down to a sunless sea. 

By leaning his head down, it seemed to Lord 
Peter that he could hear them, very faintly, 
lipping and gurgling somewhere in the darkness. 
But where? He felt quite sure that somebody 
had told him once, only he had forgotten. 

He roused himself, threw a log on the fire, and 
picked up a book which the indefatigable Bunter, 
carrying on his daily fatigues amid the excite¬ 
ments of special duty, had brought from the 
Times Book Club. It happened to be Sir Julian 
Freke’s “Physiological Bases of the Conscience,” 
which he had seen reviewed two days before. 

“This ought to send one to sleep,” said Lord 
Peter; “if I can’t leave these problems to my sub¬ 
conscious I’ll be as limp as a rag to-morrow.” 

He opened the book slowly, and glanced care¬ 
lessly through the preface. 

“I wonder if that’s true about Levy being ill,” 
he thought, putting the book down; “it doesn’t 

seem likely. And yet- Dash it all, I’ll take 

my mind off it.” 

He read on resolutely for a little. 

“I don’t suppose Mother’s kept up with the 
lievys much,” was the next importunate train of 
thought. “Dad always hated self-made people 
and wouldn’t have ’em at Denver. And old 
Gerald keeps up the tradition. I wonder if she 






WHOSE BODY? 


181 


knew Freke well in those days. She seems to get 
on with Milligan. I trust Mother’s judgment a 
good deal. She was a brick about that bazaar 
business. I ought to have warned her. She said 
something once-” 

He pursued an elusive memory for some 
minutes, till it vanished altogether with a mock¬ 
ing flicker of the tail. He returned to his read¬ 
ing. 

Presently another thought crossed his mind, 
aroused by a photograph of some experiment in 
surgery. 

“If the evidence of Freke and that man Watts 
hadn’t been so positive,” he said to himself, “I 
should be inclined to look into the matter of those 
shreds of lint on the chimney.” 

He considered this, shook his head and read 
with determination. 

Mind and matter were one tiling, that was the 
theme of the physiologist. Matter could erupt, 
as it were, into ideas. You could carve passions 
in the brain with a knife. You could get rid of 
imagination with drugs and cure an outworn 
convention like a disease. “The knowledge of 
good and evil is an observed phenomenon, atten¬ 
dant upon a certain condition of the brain-cells, 
which is removable.” That was one phrase; and 
again: 

“Conscience in man may, in fact, be compared 
to the sting of a hive-bee, which, so far from con- 





182 


WHOSE BODY? 


during to the welfare of its possessor, cannot 
function, even in a single instance, without occa¬ 
sioning its death. The survival-value in each case 
is thus purely social; and if humanity ever passes 
from its present phase of social development into 
that of a higher individualism, as some of our 
philosophers have ventured to speculate, we may 
suppose that this interesting mental phenomenon 
may gradually cease to appear; just as the nerves 
and muscles which once controlled the movements 
of our ears and scalps have, in all save a few 
backward individuals, become atrophied and of 
interest only to the physiologist.” 

“By Jove!” thought Lord Peter, idly, “that’s 
an ideal doctrine for the criminal. A man who 
believed that would never-” 

And then it happened—the thing he had been 
half-unconsciously expecting. It happened sud¬ 
denly, surely, as unmistakably as sunrise. He 
remembered—not one thing, nor another thing, 
nor a logical succession of things, but everything 
•—the whole thing, perfect, complete, in all its di¬ 
mensions as it were and instantaneouslv; as if he 
stood outside the world and saw it suspended in 
infinitely dimensional space. He no longer 
needed to reason about it, or even to think about 
it. He knew it. 

There is a game in which one is presented with 
a jumble of letters and is required to make a 
word out of them, as thus: 






WHOSE BODY? 


183 


COSSSSRI 

The slow way of solving the problem is to try 
out all the permutations and combinations in 
turn, throwing away impossible conjunctions of 
letters, as: 

SSSIRC 

or 

SCSRSO 

Another way is to stare at the incoordinate ele¬ 
ments until, by no logical process that the con¬ 
scious mind can detect, or under some adven¬ 
titious external stimulus, the combination. 

SCISSORS 

presents itself with calm certainty. After that, 
one does not even need to arrange the letters in 
order. The thing is done. 

Even so, the scattered elements of two gro¬ 
tesque conundrums, flung higgledy-piggledy into 
Lord Peter’s mind, resolved themselves, unques¬ 
tioned henceforward. A bump on the roof of 
the end house—Levy in a welter of cold rain talk¬ 
ing to a prostitute in the Battersea Park Road— 
a single ruddy hair—lint bandages—Inspector 
Sugg calling the great surgeon from the dissect¬ 
ing-room of the hospital—Lady Levy with a 
nervous attack—the smell of carbolic soap—the 
Duchess’s voice—“not really an engagement, 









184 


WHOSE BODY? 


only a sort of understanding with her father”— 
shares in Peruvian Oil—the dark skin and curved, 
fleshy profile of the man in the bath—Dr. Grim- 
bold giving evidence, “In my opinion, death did 
not occur for several days after the blow”—india- 
rubber gloves—even, faintly, the voice of Mr. 
Appledore, “He called on me, sir, with an anti- 
vivisectionist pamphlet”—all these things and 
many others rang together and made one sound, 
they swung together like bells in a steeple, with 
the deep tenor booming through the clamour: 

“The knowledge of good and evil is a phenom¬ 
enon of the brain, and is removable, removable, 
removable. The knowledge of good and evil is re¬ 
movable.” 

Lord Peter Wimsey was not a young man who 
habitually took himself very seriously, but this 
time he was frankly appalled. “It’s impossible,” 
said his reason, feebly; “credo quia impossibile” 
said his interior certainty with impervious self- 
satisfaction. “All right,” said conscience, in¬ 
stantly allying itself with blind faith, “what are 
you going to do about it?” 

Lord Peter got up and paced the room: “Good 
Lord!” he said. “Good Lord!” He took down 
“Who’s Who” from the little shelf over the tele¬ 
phone, and sought comfort in its pages. 

FREKE, Sir "Julian, Kt. er. 1916; G. C. V. O. er . 
1919; K.C.V.O. 1917; K.C.B. 1918; M.D., F.R. 




WHOSE BODY? 


185 


C.P., F.R.C.S., Dr. en Med. Paris; D. Sci. Cantab.; 
Knight of Grace of the Order of S. John of Jerusalem; 
Consulting Surgeon of St. Luke’s Hospital, Battersea. 
b. Gryllingham, 16 March 1872, only son, of Edward 
Curzon Freke Esq. of Gryll Court, Gryllingham. Educ. 
Harrow and Trinity Coll. Cambridge; Col. A.M.S.; late 
Member of the Advisory Board of the Army Medical 
Service. Publications: Some Notes on the Pathological 
Aspects of Genius, 1892; Statistical Contributions to the 
Study of Infantile Paralysis in England and Wales, 1894; 
Functional Disturbances of the Nervous System^ 1899; 
Cerebro-Spinal Diseases, 1904; The Borderland of In¬ 
sanity, 1906; An Examination into the Treatment of 
Pauper Lunacy in the United Kingdom, 1906; Modern 
Developments in Psycho-Therapy: A Criticism, 1910; 
Criminal Lunacy, 1914; The Application of Psycho- 
Therapy to the Treatment of Shell-Shock, 1917; An An¬ 
swer to Professor Freud, with a Description of Some 
Experiments Carried Out at the Base Hospital at Amiens, 
1919; Structural Modifications Accompanying the More 
Important Neuroses, 1920. Clubs: White’s; Oxford and 
Cambridge; Alpine, etc. Recreations: Chess, Moun¬ 
taineering, Fishing. Address: 82, Harley Street and St. 
Luke’s House, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea Park, 
S.W.ll” 

He flung the book away. “Confirmation!” he 
groaned. “As if I needed it!” 

He sat down again and buried his face in his 
hands. He remembered quite suddenly how, 
years ago, he had stood before the breakfast table 
at Denver Castle—a small, peaky boy in blue 
knickers, with a thunderously beating heart. The 
family had not come down; there was a great 




186 


WHOSE BODY? 


silver urn with a spirit lamp under it, and an 
elaborate coffee-pot boiling in a glass dome. He 
had twitched the corner of the tablecloth— 
twitched it harder, and the urn moved ponder¬ 
ously forward and all the teaspoons rattled. He 
seized the tablecloth in a firm grip and pulled 
his hardest—he could feel now the delicate and 
awful thrill as the urn and the coffee machine and 
the whole of a Sevres breakfast service had 
crashed down in one stupendous ruin—he remem¬ 
bered the horrified face of the butler, and the 
screams of a lady guest. 

A log broke across and sank into a fluff of 
white ash. A belated motor-lorry rumbled past 
the window. 

Mr. Bunter, sleeping the sleep of the true and 
faithful servant, was aroused in the small hours 
by a hoarse whisper, “Bunter!” 

“Yes, my lord,” said Bunter, sitting up and 
switching on the light. 

“Put that light out, damn you!” said the voice. 
“Listen—over there—listen—can’t you hear it?” 

“It’s nothing, my lord,” said Mr. Bunter, 
hastily getting out of bed and catching hold of 
his master; “it’s all right, you get to bed quick 
and I’ll fetch you a drop of bromide. Why, 
you’re all shivering—you’ve been sitting up too 
late.” 

“Hush! no, no—it’s the water,” said Lord 
Peter with chattering teeth; “it’s up to their 






WHOSE BODY? 

/ 


1871 


waists down there, poor devils. But listen! can’t 
you hear it? Tap, tap, tap—they’re mining us—» 
but I don’t know where—I can’t hear—I can’t. 
Listen, you! There it is again—we must find it 
—we must stop it . . . Listen! Oh, my God! I 
can’t hear—I can’t hear anything for the noise of 
the guns. Can’t they stop the guns?” 

“Oh, dear!” said Mr. Bunter to himself. “No, 
no—it’s all right, Major—don’t you worry.” 

“But I hear it,” protested Peter. 

“So do I,” said Mr. Bunter stoutly; “very good 
hearing, too, my lord. That’s our own sappers 
at work in the communication trench. Don’t you 
fret about that, sir.” 

Lord Peter grasped his wrist with a feverish 

hand. 

“Our own sappers,” he said; “sure of that?” 

“Certain of it,” said Mr. Bunter, cheerfully. 

“They’ll bring down the tower,” said Lord 

Peter. 

“To be sure they will,” said Mr. Bunter, “and 
very nice, too. You just come and lay down a 
bit, sir—they’ve come to take over this section.” 

“You’re sure it’s safe to leave it?” said Lord 
Peter. 

“Safe as houses, sir,” said Mr. Bunter, tuck¬ 
ing his master’s arm under his and walking him 
off to his bedroom. 

Lord Peter allowed himself to he dosed and 
put to bed without further resistance. Mr. Bun- 









188 


WHOSE BODY? 


ter, looking singularly un-Bunterlike in striped 
pyjamas, with his stiff black hair ruffled about 
his head, sat grimly watching the younger man’s 
sharp cheekbones and the purple stains under his 
eyes. 

“Thought we’d had the last of these attacks,” 
he said. “Been overdoin’ of himself. Asleep?” 
He peered at him anxiously. An affectionate 
note crept into his voice. “Bloody little fool!” 

said Sergeant Eunter. 




IX 


Mr. Parker, summoned the next morning to 
110 Piccadilly, arrived to find the Dowager 
Duchess in possession. She greeted him charm- 

ingly. 

4 ‘I am going to take this silly boy down to 
Denver for the week-end,” she said, indicating 
Peter, who was writing and only acknowledged 
his friend’s entrance with a brief nod. “He’s been 
doing too much—running about to Salisbury and 
places and up till all hours of the night—you 
really shouldn’t encourage him, Mr. Parker, it’s 
very naughty of you—waking poor Bunter up in 
the middle of the night with scares about Ger¬ 
mans, as if that wasn’t all over years ago, and he 
hasn’t had an attack for ages, but there! Nerves 
are such funny things, and Peter always did have 
nightmares when he was quite a little boy—* 
though very often of course it was only a little 
pill he wanted; but he was so dreadfully bad in 
1918, you know, and I suppose we can’t expect 
to forget all about a great war in a year or two, 
and, really, I ought to be very thankful with both 
my boys safe. Still, I think a little peace and 
quiet at Denver won’t do him any harm.” 

“Sorry you’ve been having a bad turn, old 

189 




190 


WHOSE BODY? 


man,” said Parker, vaguely sympathetic; “you’re 
looking a bit seedy.” 

“Charles,” said Lord Peter, in a voice entirely 
void of expression, “I am going away for a couple 
of days because I can be no use to you in London. 
What has got to be done for the moment can be 
much better done by you than by me. I want you 
to take this—he folded up his writing and 
placed it in an envelope—“to Scotland Yard im¬ 
mediately and get it sent out to all the work- 
houses, infirmaries, police stations, Y. M. C. A.’s 
and so on in London. It is a description of 
Thipps’s corpse as he was before he was shaved 
and cleaned up. I want to know whether any 
man answering to that description has been taken 
in anywhere, alive or dead, during the last fort¬ 
night. You will see Sir Andrew Mackenzie per¬ 
sonally, and get the paper sent out at once, by 
his authority; you will tell him that you have 
solved the problems of the Levy murder and the 
Battersea mystery”—Mr. Parker made an aston¬ 
ished noise to which his friend paid no attention 
—“and you will ask him to have men in readiness 
with a warrant to arrest a very dangerous and 
important criminal at any moment on your in¬ 
formation. When the replies to this paper come 
in, you will search for any mention of St. Luke’s 
Hospital, or of any person connected with St. 
Luke’s Hospital, and you will send for me at 
once. 






WHOSE BODY? 


191 


“Meanwhile you will scrape acquaintance—I 
don’t care how—with one of the students at St. 
Luke’s. Don’t march in there blowing about 
murders and police warrants, or you may find 
yourself in Queer Street. I shall come up to town 
as soon as I hear from you, and I shall expect to 
find a nice ingenuous Sawbones here to meet 
me.” He grinned faintly. 

“D’you mean you’ve got to the bottom of this 
thing?” asked Parker. 

“Yes. I may be wrong. I hope I am, but I 
know I’m not.” 

“You won’t tell me?” 

“D’you know,” said Peter, “honestly I’d 
rather not. I say I may be wrong—and I’d feel 
as if I’d libelled the Archbishop of Canterbury.” 

“Well, tell me—is it one mystery or two?” 

“One.” 

“You talked of the Levy murder. Is Levy 
dead?” 

“God—yes!” said Peter, with a strong shud¬ 
der. 

The Duchess looked up from where she was 
reading the Tatler. 

“Peter,” she said, “is that your ague coming 
on again? Whatever you two are chattering 
about, you’d better stop it at once if it excites 
you. Besides, it’s about time to be off.” 

“All right, Mother,” said Peter. He turned 
to Bunter, standing respectfully in the door with 






192 


WHOSE BODY? 


an overcoat and suitcase. “You understand what 
you have to do, don’t you?” he said. 

“Perfectly, than you, my lord. The car is 
just arriving, your Grace.” 

“With Mrs. Thipps inside it,” said the 
Duchess. “She’ll be delighted to see you again, 
Peter. You remind her so of Mr. Thipps. Good¬ 
morning, Bunter.” 

“Good-morning, your Grace.” 

Parker accompanied them downstairs. 

When they had gone he looked blankly at the 
paper in his hand—then, remembering that it 
was Saturday and there was need for haste, he 
hailed a taxi. 

“Scotland Yard!” he cried. 

Tuesday morning saw Lord Peter and a man 
in a velveteen jacket swishing merrily through 
seven acres of turnip-tops, streaked yellow with 
early frosts. A little way ahead, a sinuous under¬ 
current of excitement among the leaves pro¬ 
claimed the unseen yet ever-near presence of one 
of the Duke of Denver’s setter pups. Presently a 
partridge flew up with a noise like a police rattle, 
and Lord Peter accounted for it very creditably 
for a man who, a few nights before, had been 
listening to imaginary German sappers. The 
setter bounded foolishly through the turnips, and 
fetched back the dead bird. 

“Good dog,” said Lord Peter. 







WHOSE BODY? 


193 


Encouraged by this, the dog gave a sudden 
ridiculous gambol and barked, its ear tossed in¬ 
side out over its head. 

“Heel,” said the man in velveteen, violently. 
The animal sidled up, ashamed. 

“Fool of a dog, that,” said the man in vel¬ 
veteen; “can’t keep quiet. Too nervous, my lord. 
One of old Black Lass’s pups.” 

“Dear me,” said Peter, “is the old dog still 
going?” 

“No, my lord; we had to put her away in the 
spring.” 

Peter nodded. He always proclaimed that he 
hated the country and was thankful to have noth¬ 
ing to do with the family estates, but this morn¬ 
ing he enjoyed the crisp air and the wet leaves 
washing darkly over his polished boots. At Den¬ 
ver things moved in an orderly way; no one died 
sudden and violent deaths except aged setters— 
and partridges, to be sure. He sniffed up the au¬ 
tumn smell with appreciation. There was a let¬ 
ter in his pocket which had come by the morning 
post, but he did not intend to read it just yet. 
Parker had not wired; there was no hurry. 

* # # 

He read it in the smoking-room after lunch. 
His brother was there, dozing over the Times —a 
good, clean Englishman, sturdy and conven- 




194 


WHOSE BODY? 


tional, rather like Henry VIII in his youth; 
Gerald, sixteenth Duke of Denver. The Duke 
considered his cadet rather degenerate, and not 
quite good form; he disliked his taste for police- 
court news. 

The letter was from Mr. Bunter. 


My Lord: 


110, Piccadilly, 

W.l. 


I write (Mr. Bunter had been carefully edu¬ 
cated and knew that nothing is more vulgar than 
a careful avoidance of beginning a letter with the 
first person singular) as your lordship directed, 
to inform you of the result of my investigations. 

I experienced no difficulty in becoming ac¬ 
quainted with Sir Julian Freke’s man-servant. 
He belongs to the same club as the Hon. Fred¬ 
erick Arbuthnot’s man, who is a friend of mine, 
and was very willing to introduce me. He took 
me to the club yesterday (Sunday) evening, and 
we dined with the man, whose name is John Cum¬ 
mings, and afterwards I invited Cummings to 
drinks and a cigar in the flat. Your lordship will 
excuse me doing this, knowing that it is not my 
habit, but it has always been my experience that 
the best way to gain a man’s confidence is to let 
him suppose that one takes advantage of one’s 
employer. 



WHOSE BODY? 


195 


(I always suspected Bunter of being a stu¬ 
dent of human nature,” commented Lord Peter.)' 

I gave him the best old port (“The deuce you 
did,” said Lord Peter), having heard you and 
Mr. Arhuthnot talk over it. (“Hum!” said 
Lord Peter.) 

Its effects were quite equal to my expectations 
as regards the principal matter in hand, hut I 
very much regret to state that the man had so 
little understanding of what was offered to him 
that he smoked a cigar with it (one of your lord¬ 
ship’s Villar Villars). You will understand that 
I made no comment on this at the*time, hut your 
lordship will sympathize with my feelings. May 
I take this opportunity of expressing my grateful 
appreciation of your lordship’s excellent taste in 
food, drink and dress? It is, if I may say so, 
more than a pleasure—it is an education, to valet 
and buttle your lordship. 

Lord Peter bowed his head gravely. 

“What on earth are you doing, Peter, sittin* 
there noddin’ an’ grinnin’ like a what-you-may- 
call-it?” demanded the Duke, coming suddenly 
out of a snooze. “Someone writin’ pretty things 
to you, what?” 

“Charming things,” said Lord Peter. 

The Duke eyed him doubtfully. 

“Hope to goodness you don’t go and marry a 




196 


WHOSE BODY? 


chorus beauty,” he muttered inwardly, and re¬ 
turned to the Times .) 

Over dinner I had set myself to discover Cum¬ 
mings’s tastes, and found them to run in the di¬ 
rection of the music-hall stage. During his first 
glass I drew him out in this direction, your lord- 
ship having kindly given me opportunities of 
seeing every performance in London, and I spoke 
more freeely than I should consider becoming in 
the ordinary way in order to make myself pleas¬ 
ant to him. I may say that his views on women 
and the stage were such as I should have ex¬ 
pected from a man who would smoke with your 
lordship’s port. 

With the second glass I introduced the subject 
of your lordship’s enquiries. In order to save 
time I will write our conversation in the form of 
a dialogue, as nearly as possible as it actually 
took place. 

Cummings: You seem to get many opportuni¬ 
ties of seeing a bit of life, Mr. Bunter. 

Bunter: One can always make opportunities 
if one knows how. 

Cummings: Ah, it’s very easy for you to talk, 
Mr. Bunter. You’re not married, for one thing. 

Bunter: I know better than that, Mr. Cum¬ 
mings. 

Cummings: So do I— now, when it’s too late. 
(He sighed heavily, and I filled up his glass.) 





WHOSE BODY? 


197 


* 

Bunter: Does Mrs. Cummings live with you at 
Battersea? 

Cummings: Yes; her and me we do for my 
governor. Such a life! Not but what there’s a 
char comes in by the day. But what’s a char? I 
can tell you it’s dull all by ourselves in that d—d 
Battersea suburb. 

Bunter: Not very convenient for the Halls, of 
course. 

Cummings: I believe you. It’s all right for 
you, here in Piccadilly, right on the spot as you 
might say. And I daresay your governor’s often 
out all night, eh? 

Bunter: Oh, frequently, Mr. Cummings. 

Cummings: And I daresay you take the oppor¬ 
tunity to slip off yourself every so often, eh? 

Bunter: Well, what do you think, Mr. Cum¬ 
mings? 

Cummings: That’s it; there you are! But 
what’s a man to do with a nagging fool of a wife 
and a blasted scientific doctor for a governor, as 
sits up all night cutting up dead bodies and ex¬ 
perimenting with frogs? 

Bunter: Surely he goes out sometimes. 

Cummings: Not often. And always back be¬ 
fore twelve. And the way he goes on if he rings 
the bell and you ain’t there. I give you my word, 
Mr. Bunter. 

Bunter: Temper? 

Cummings: No-o-o—but looking through you. 





198 


WHOSE BODY? 


nasty-like, as if you was on that operating table 
of his and he was going to cut you up. Nothing 
a man could rightly complain of, you understand, 
Mr. Bunter, just nasty looks. Not but what 
I will say he’s very correct. Apologizes if he’s 
been inconsiderate. But what’s the good of that 
when he’s been and gone and lost you your night’s 
rest? 

Bunter: How does he do that? Keeps you up 
late, you mean? 

Cummings: Not him; far from it. House 
locked up and household to bed at half past ten. 
That’s his littie rule. Not but what I’m glad 
enough to go as a rule, it’s that dreary. Still, 
when I do go to bed I like to go to sleep. 

Bimter: What does he do? Walk about the 
house? 

Cummings: Doesn’t he? All night. And in 
and out of the private door to the hospital. 

Bwriter: You don’t mean to say, Mr. Cum¬ 
mings, a great specialist like Sir Julian Freke 
does night work at the hospital ? 

Cummings: No, no; he does his own work—re¬ 
search work, as you may say. Cuts people up. 
-They say he’s very clever. Could take you or 
me to pieces like a clock, Mr. Bunter, and put 
us together again. 

Bunter: Do you sleep in the basement, then, 
to hear him so plain? 

Cummings: No; our bedroom’s at the top. 




WHOSE BODY? 


199 


But, Lord! what’s that? He’ll bang the door so 
you can hear him all over the house. 

Bunter: Ah, many’s the time I’ve had to speak 
to Lord Peter about that. And talking all night. 
And baths. ' 

Cummings: Baths? You may well say that, 
Mr. Bunter. Baths? Me and my wife sleep next 
to the cistern-room. Noise fit to wake the dead. 
All hours. When d’you think he chose to have 
a bath, no later than last Monday night, Mr. 
Bunter? 

Bunter: I’ve known them to do it at two in the 
morning, Mr. Cummings. 

Cummings: Have you, now"? Well, this was 
at three. Three o’clock in the morning we was 
waked up. I give you my word. 

Bunter: You don’t say so, Mr. Cummings. 

Cummings: He cuts up diseases, you see, Mr. 
Bunter, and then he don’t like to go to bed till 
he’s washed the bacilluses off, if you understand 
me. Very natural, too, I daresay. But what I 
say is, the middle of the night’s no time for a 
gentleman to be occupying his mind with dis¬ 
eases. 

Bunter: These great men have their own way 
of doing things. 

Cummings: Well, all I can say is, it isn’t my 
wav. 

(I could believe that, your lordship. Cummings 
has no signs of greatness about him, and his trou- 




200 


WHOSE BODY? 


sers are not what I would wish to see in a man 
of his profession.) 

Bunter: Is he habitually as late as that, Mr. 
Cummings ? 

Cummings: Well, no, Mr. Bunter, I will say, 
not as a general rule. He apologized, too, in the 
morning, and said he would have the cistern seen 
to—and very necessary, in my opinion, for the 
air gets into the pipes, and the groaning and 
screeching as goes on is something awful. Just 
like Niagara, if you follow me, Mr. Bunter, I 
give you my word. 

Bunter: Well, that’s as it should be, Mr. Cum¬ 
mings. One can put up with a great deal from a 
gentleman that has the manners to apologize. 
And, of course, sometimes they can’t help them¬ 
selves. A visitor will come in unexpectedly and 
keep them late, perhaps. 

Cummings: That’s true enough, Mr. Bunter. 
Now I come to think of it, there was a gentleman 
come in on Monday evening. Not that he came 
late, but he stayed about an hour, and may have 
put Sir Julian behindhand. 

Bunter: Very likely. Let me give you some 
more port, Mr. Cummings. Or a little of Lord 
Peter’s old brandy. 

Cummings: A little of the brandy, thank you, 
Mr. Bunter. I suppose you have the run of the 
cellar here. (He winked at me.) 

“Trust me for that,” I said, and I fetched him 




WHOSE BODY? 


201 


the Napoleon. I assure your lordship it went to 
my heart to pour it out for a man like that. How¬ 
ever, seeing we had got on the right tack, I felt 
it wouldn’t be wasted. 

“I’m sure I wish it was always gentlemen that 
come here at night,” I said. (Your lordship will 
excuse me, I am sure, making such a suggestion.) 

(“Good God,” said Lord Peter, “I wish Bun- 
ter was less thorough in his methods.”) 

Cummings: Oh, he’s that sort, his lordship, is 
he? (He chuckled and poked me. I suppress a 
portion of his conversation here, which could not 
fail to be as offensive to your lordship as it was 
to myself. He went on:) No, it’s none of that 
with Sir Julian. Very few visitors at night, and 
always gentlemen. And going early as a rule, 
like the one I mentioned. 

Bunter: Just as well. There’s nothing I find 
more wearisome, Mr. Cummings, than sitting up 
to see visitors out. 

Cummings: Oh, I didn’t see this one out. Sir 
Julian let him out himself at ten o’clock or there¬ 
abouts. I heard the gentleman shout “Good¬ 
night” and off he goes. 

Bunter: Does Sir Julian always do that? 

Cummings: Well, that depends. If he sees 
visitors downstairs, he lets them out himself; if 
he sees them upstairs in the library, he rings for 
me. 

Bunter: This was a downstairs visitor, then? 





202 


WHOSE BODY? 


Cummings: Oh, yes. Sir Julian opened the 
door to him, I remember. He happened to be 
working in the hall. Though now I come to 
think of it, they went up to the library after¬ 
wards. That’s funny. I know they did, because 
I happened to go up to the hall with coals, and 
I heard them upstairs. Besides, Sir Julian rang 
for me in the library a few minutes later. Still, 
anyway, we heard him go at ten, or it may have 
been a bit before. He hadn’t only stayed about 
three-quarters of an hour. However, as I was 
saying, there was Sir Julian banging in and out 
of the private door all night, and a bath at three 
in the morning, and up again for breakfast at 
eight—it beats me. If I had all his mone}q curse 
me if I’d go poking about with dead men in the 
middle of the night. If it was a nice live girl, 
now, Mr. Bunter- 

I need not repeat any more of his conversation, 
as it became unpleasant and incoherent, and I 
could not bring him back to the events of Mon¬ 
day night. I was unable to get rid of him till 
three. He cried on my neck, and said I was the 
bird, and you were the governor for him. He 
said that Sir Julian would be greatly annoyed 
with him for coming home so late, but Sunday 
night was his night out and if anything was said 
about it he would give notice. I think he will be 
ill-advised to do so, as I feel he is not a man I 
could conscientiously recommend if I were in Sir 





WHOSE BODY? 


203 


Julian Freke’s place. I noticed that his boot- 
heels were slightly worn down. 

I should wish to add, as a tribute to the great 
merits of your lordship’s cellar, that, although I 
Was obliged to drink a somewhat large quantity 
both of the Cockburn ’68 and the 1800 Napoleon 
I feel no headache or other ill effects this morn¬ 
ing. 

Trusting that your lordship is deriving real 
benefit from the country air, and that the little 
information I have been able to obtain will prove 
satisfactory, I remain, 

With respectful duty to all the family, their 
ladyships. 

Obediently yours, 

Mervyn Buntek. 

“Y’know,” said Lord Peter thoughtfully to 
himself, “I sometimes think Mervyn Bunter’s 
pullin’ my leg. What is it, Soames?” % 

“A telegram, my lord.” 

“Parker,” said Lord Peter, opening it. It 
said: 

“Description recognized Chelsea Workhouse. 
Unknown vagrant injured street accident 
Wednesday week. Died workhouse Monday. 
Delivered St. Luke’s same evening by order 
Freke. Much puzzled. Parker.” 




204 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Hurray!” said Lord Peter, suddenly spark¬ 
ling. “I’m glad I’ve puzzled Parker. Gives me 
confidence in mvself. Makes me feel like Slier- 
lock Holmes. ‘Perfectly simple, Watson.’ Dash 
it all, though! this is a beastly business. Still, 
it’s puzzled Parker.” 

“What’s the matter?” asked the Duke, getting 
up and yawning. 

“Marching orders,” said Peter, “back to town. 
Many thanks for your hospitality, old bird—I’m 
feelin’ no end better. Beady to tackle Professor 
Moriarty or Leon Kestrel or any of ’em.” 

“I do wish you’d keep out of the police courts,” 
grumbled the Duke. “It makes it so dashed awk¬ 
ward for me, havin’ a brother makin’ himself 
conspicuous.” 

“Sorry, Gerald,” said the other, “I know I’m 
a beastly blot on the ’scutcheon.” 

“Why can’t you marry and settle down and 
live quietly, doin’ something useful?” said the 
Duke unappeased. 

“Because that was a wash-out as you perfectly 
well know,” said Peter; “besides,” he added 
cheerfully, “I’m bein’ no end useful. You may 
come to want me yourself, you never know. 
When anybody comes blackmailin’ you, Gerald, 
or your first deserted wife turns up unexpectedly 
from the West Indies, you’ll realize the pull of 
havin’ a private detective in the family. ‘Delicate 






WHOSE BODY? 


205 


private business arranged with tact and discre¬ 
tion. Investigations undertaken. Divorce evi¬ 
dence a specialty. Every guarantee!’ Come, 
now.” 

“Ass!” said Lord Denver, throwing the news¬ 
paper violently into his armchair. “When do you 
want the car?” 

“Almost at once. I say, Jerry, I’m taking 
Mother up with me.” 

“Why should she he mixed up in it?” 

“Well, I want her help.” 

“I call it most unsuitable,” said the Duke. 

The Dowager Duchess, however, made no ob¬ 
jection. 

“I used to know her quite well,” she said, 
“when she was Christine Ford. Why, dear?” 

“Because,” said Lord Peter, “there’s a terrible 
piece of news to be broken to her about her hus¬ 
band.” 

“Is he dead, dear?” 

“Yes; and she will have to come and identify 

him.” 

“Poor Christine.” 

“Under very revolting circumstances, Moth- 
er. 

“I’ll come with you, dear.” 

“Thank you, Mother, you’re a brick. D’you 
mind gettin’ your things on straight away and 
cornin’ up with me? I’ll tell you about it in the 






X 


Mr. Parker, a faithful though doubting 
Thomas, had duly secured his medical student: 
a large young man like an overgrown puppy, 
with innocent eyes and a freckled face. He sat 
on the Chesterfield before Lord Peter’s library 
fire, bewildered in equal measure by his errand, 
his surroundings and the drink which he was ab¬ 
sorbing. His palate, though untutored, was nat¬ 
urally a good one, and he realized that even to 
call this liquid a drink—the term ordinarily used 
by him to designate cheap whisky, post-war beer 
or a dubious glass of claret in a Soho restaurant 
—was a sacrilege; this was something outside 
normal experience: a genie in a bottle. 

The man called Parker, whom he had hap¬ 
pened to run across the evening before in the 
public-house at the corner of Prince of Wales 
Road, seemed to be a good sort. He had insisted 
on bringing him round to see this friend of his, 
who lived splendidly in Piccadilly. Parker was 
quite understandable; he put him down as a gov¬ 
ernment servant, or perhaps something in the 
City. The friend was embarrassing; he was a 
lord, to begin with, and his clothes were a kind of 
rebuke to the world at large. He talked the most 

207 



208 


WHOSE BODY? 


fatuous nonsense, certainly, but in a disconcert¬ 
ing way. He didn’t dig into a joke and get all the 
fun out of it; he made it in passing, so to speak, 
and skipped away to something else before your 
retort was ready. He had a truly terrible man¬ 
servant—the sort you read about in books—who 
froze the marrow in your bones with silent criti¬ 
cism. Parker appeared to bear up under the 
strain, and this made you think more highly of 
Parker; he must be more habituated to the sur¬ 
roundings of the great than you would think to 
look at him. You wondered what the carpet had 
cost on which Parker was carelessly spilling cigar 
ash; your father was an upholsterer—Mr. Pig- 
gott, of Piggott & Piggott, Liverpool—and you 
knew enough about carpets to know that you 
couldn’t even guess at the price of this one. When 
you moved your head on the bulging silk cushion 
in the corner of the sofa, it made you wish you 
shaved more often and more carefully. The sofa 
was a monster—but even so, it hardly seemed big 
enough to contain you. This Lord Peter was 
not very tall—in fact, he was rather a small man, 
but he didn’t look undersized. He looked right; 
he made you feel that to be six-foot-three was 
rather vulgarly assertive; you felt like Mother’s 
new drawing-room curtains—all over great, big 
blobs. But everybody was very decent to you, 
and nobody said anything you couldn’t under¬ 
stand, or sneered at you. There were some 







WHOSE BODY? 


209 


frightfully deep-looking books o nthe shelves all 
round, and you had looked into a great folio 
Dante which was lying on the table, but your 
hosts were talking quite ordinarily and ration¬ 
ally about the sort of books you read yourself— 
clinking good love stories and detective stories. 
You had read a lot of those, and could give an 
opinion, and they listened to what you had to say, 
though Lord Peter had a funny way of talking 
about books, too, as if the author had confided in 
him beforehand, and told him how the story was 
put together, and which bit was written first. It 
reminded you of the way old Freke took a body 
to pieces. 

“Thing I object to in detective stories,” said 
Mr. Piggott, “is the way fellows remember every 
bloomin’ thing that’s happened to ’em within the 
last six months. They’re always ready with their 
time of day and was it rainin’ or not, and what 
were they doin’ on such an’ such a day. Reel it 
all off like a page of poetry. But one ain’t like 
that in real life, d’you think so, Lord Peter?” 
Lord Peter smiled, and young Piggott, instantly 
embarrassed, appealed to his earlier acquaintance. 
“You know what I mean, Parker. Come now. 
One day’s so like another, I’m sure I couldn’t re¬ 
member—well, I might remember yesterday, 
p’r’aps, but I couldn’t be certain about what I 
was doin’ last week if I was to be shot for it.” 

“No,” said Parker, “and evidence given in po- 





210 


WHOSE BODY? 


lice statements sounds just as impossible. But 
they don’t really get it like that, you know. I 
mean, a man doesn’t just say, ‘Last Friday I 
went out at ten o’clock a. m. to buy a mutton 
chop. As I was turning into Mortimer Street I 
noticed a girl of about.twenty-two with black hair 
and brown eyes, wearing a green jumper, check 
skirt, Panama hat and black shoes riding a Royal 
Sunbeam Cycle at about ten miles an hour turn¬ 
ing the corner by the Church of St. Simon and 
St. Jude on the wrong side of the road riding to¬ 
wards the market place!’ It amounts to that, of 
course, but it’s really wormed out of him by a 
series of questions.” 

“And in short stories,” said Lord Peter, “it has 
to be put in statement form, because the real con¬ 
versation would be so long and twaddly and te¬ 
dious, and nobody would have the patience to 
read it. Writers have to consider their readers, 
if any, y’see.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Piggott, “but.I°bet you most 
people would find it jolly difficult to remember, 
even if you asked ’em things. I should—of 
course, I know I’m a bit of a fool, but then, most 
people are, ain’t they? You know what I mean. 
Witnesses ain’t detectives, they’re just average 
idiots like you and me.” 

“Quite so,” said Lord Peter, smiling as the 
force of the last phrase sank into its unhappy 
perpetrator; “you mean, if I were to ask you in a 




WHOSE BODY? 


211 


general way what you were doin’—say, a week 
ago to-day, you wouldn’t be able to tell me a 
thing about it offhand.” 

“No—I’m sure I shouldn’t.” He considered. 
“No. I was in at the Hospital as usual, I sup¬ 
pose, and, being Tuesday, there’d be a lecture on 
something or the other—hashed if I know what— 
and in the evening I went out with Tommy 
Pringle—no, that must have been Monday—or 
was it Wednesday? I tell you, I couldn’t swear 
to anything.” 

“You do yourself an injustice,” said Lord 
Peter gravely. “I’m sure, for instance, you recol¬ 
lect what work you were doing in the dissecting- 
room on that day, for example.” 

“Lord, no! not for certain. I mean, I daresay 
it might come back to me if I thought for a long 
time, but I wouldn’t swear to it in a court of law.” 

“I’ll bet you half a crown to sixpence,” said 
Lord Peter, “that you’ll remember within five 
minutes.” 

“I’m sure I can’t.” 

“We’ll see. Do you keep a notebook of the 
work you do when you dissect? Drawings or 
anything?” 

“Oh, yes.” 

“Think of that. What’s the last thing you did 
in it?” 

“That’s easy, because I only did it this morn¬ 
ing. It was leg muscles.” 




212 


WHOSE BODY? 


“Yes. Who was the subject?” 
r “An old woman of sorts; died of pneumonia.” 

“Yes. Turn back the pages of your drawing- 
book in your mind. What came before that?” 

“Oh, some animals—still legs; I’m doing mo¬ 
tor muscles at present. Yes. That was old Cun¬ 
ningham’s demonstration on comparative anat¬ 
omy. I did rather *a good thing of a hare’s legs 
and a frog’s, and rudimentary legs on a snake.” 

“Yes. Which day does Mr. Cunningham lec¬ 
ture?” 

“Friday.” 

“Friday; yes. Turn back again. What comes 
before that?” 

Mr. Piggott shook his head. 

“Do your drawings of legs begin on the right- 
hand page or the left-hand page? Can you see 
the first drawing?” 

“Yes—yes—I can see the date written at the 
top. It’s a section of a frog’s hind leg, on the 
right-hand page.”* 

“Yes. Think of the open book in your mind’s 
eye. What is opposite to it?” 

This demanded some mental concentration. 

“Something round—coloured—oh, yes—it’s a 
hand.” 

“Yes. You went on from the muscles of the 
hand and arm to leg- and foot-muscles?” 

“Yes; that’s right. I’ve got a set of drawings 
of arms.” 






WHOSE BODY? 


213 


“ Yes. Did you make those on the Thursday ?” 

“No; I’m never in the dissecting-room on 
Thursday.” 

“On Wednesday, perhaps?” 

“Yes; I must have made them on Wednesday. 
Yes; I did. I went in there after we’d seen those 
tetanus patients in the morning. I did them on 
Wednesday afternoon. I know I went back be¬ 
cause I wanted to finish ’em. I worked rather 
hard—for me. That’s why I remember.” 

“Yes; you went back to finish them. When 
had you begun them, then?” 

“Why, the day before.” 

“The day before. That was Tuesday, wasn’t 
it?” 

“I’ve lost count—yes, the day before Wednes¬ 
day—yes, Tuesday.” 

“Yes. Were they a man’s arms or a woman’s 
arms?” 

“Oh, a man’s arms.” 

“Yes; last Tuesday, a week ago to-day, you 
jwere dissecting a man’s arms in the dissecting- 
room. Sixpence, please.” 

“By Jove!” 

“Wait a moment. You know a lot more about 
it than that. You’ve no idea how much you 
know. You know what kind of man he was.” 

“Oh, I never saw him complete, you know. I 
got there a bit late that day, I remember. I’d 
asked for an arm specially, because I was rather 




214 


WHOSE BODY? 


weak in arms, and Watts—that’s the attendant— 
had promised to save me one.” 

“Yes. You have arrived late and found your 
arm waiting for you. You are dissecting it— 
taking your scissors and slitting up the skin and 
pinning it back. Was it very voung, fair 
skin?” 

“Oh, no—no. Ordinary skin, I think—with 
dark hairs on it—yes, that was it.” 

“Yes. A lean, stringy arm, perhaps, with no 
extra fat anywhere?” 

“Oh, no—I was rather annoyed about that. I 
wanted a good, muscular arm, but it was rather 
poorly developed and the fat got in my way.” 

“Yes; a sedentary man who didn’t do much 
manual work.” 

“That’s right.” 

“Yes. You dissected the hand, for instance, 
and made a drawing of it. You would have 
noticed any hard calluses.” 

“Oh, there was nothing of that sort.” 

“No. But should you say it was a young man’s 
arm? Firm young flesh and limber joints?” 

“No—no.” 

“No. Old and stringy, perhaps.” 

“No. Middle-aged—with rheumatism. I 
mean, there was a chalky deposit in the joints, 
and the fingers were a bit swollen.” 

“Yes. A man about fifty.” 

“About that.” 




WHOSE BODY? 


215 


“Yes. There were other students at work on 
the same body.” 

“Oh, yes.” 

“Yes. And they made all the usual sort of 
jokes about it.” 

“I expect so—oh, yes!” 

“You can remember some of them. Who is 
your local funny man, so to speak?” 

“Tommy Pringle.” 

“What was Tommy Pringle doing?” 

“Can’t remember.” 

“Whereabouts was Tommy Pringle working?” 

“Over by the instrument-cupboard—by sink C.” 

“Yes. Get a picture of Tommy Pringle in 
your mind’s eye.” 

Piggott began to laugh. 

“I remember now. Tommy Pringle said the old 
Sheeny-” 

“Why did he call him a Sheeny?” 

“I don’t know. But I know he did.” 

“Perhaps he looked like it. Did you see his 
head?” 

“No.” 

“Who had the head?” 

“I don’t know—oh, yes, I do, though. Old 
Freke bagged the head himself, and little Bounci- 
ble Binns was very cross about it, because he’d 
been promised a head to do with old Scrooger.” 

“I see; what was Sir Julian doing with the 
head?” 








WHOSE BODY? 


216 

* 

“He called us up and gave us a jaw on spinal 
haemorrhage and nervous lesions.” 

“Yes. Well, go back to Tommy Pringle.” 

Tommy Pringle’s joke was repeated, not with¬ 
out some embarrassment. 

“Quite so. Was that all?” 

“No. The chap who was working with 
Tommy said that sort of thing came from over¬ 
feeding.” 

“I deduce that Tommy Pringle’s partner was 
interested in the alimentary canal.” 

“Yes; and Tommy said, if he’d thought they’d 
feed you like that he’d go to the workhouse him¬ 
self.” 

“Then the man was a pauper from the work- 
house.” 

“Well, he must have been, I suppose.” 

“Are workhouse paupers usually fat and well- 
fed?” 

“Well, no—come to think of it, not as a rule.” 

“In fact, it struck Tommy Pringle and his 
friend that this was something a little out of the 
way in a workhouse subject?” 

“Yes.” 

“And if the alimentary canal was so entertain¬ 
ing to these gentlemen, I imagine the subject had 
come by his death shortly after a full meal.” 

“Yes—oh, yes—he’d have had to, wouldn’t 
he?” 

“Well, I don’t know,” said Lord Peter. “That’s 






WHOSE BODY? 


217 


in your department, you know. That would be 
your inference, from what they said.” 

“Oh, yes. Undoubtedly.” 

“Yes; you wouldn’t, for example, expect them 
to make that observation if the patient had been 
ill for a iong time and fed on slops.” 

“Of course not.” 

“Well, you see, you really know a lot about it. 
On Tuesday week you were dissecting the arm 
muscles of a rheumatic middle-aged Jew, of sed¬ 
entary habits, who had died shortly after eating a 
heavy meal, of some injury producing spinal 
haemorrhage and nervous lesions, and so forth, and 
who was presumed to come from the workhouse. 

“Yes.” 

“And you could swear to those facts, if need 
were?” 

“Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I 
could.” 

“Of course you could.” 

Mr. Piggott sat for some moments in contem¬ 
plation. 

“I say,” he said at last, “I did know all that, 
didn’t I?” 

“Oh, yes—you knew it all right—like Socra¬ 
tes’s slave.” 

“Who’s he?” 

“A person in a hook I used to read as a boy.” 

“Oh—does he come in ‘The East Days of Pom- 
peii’f’ 




218 


WHOSE BODY? 


“No—another book—I daresay you escaped 
it. It’s rather dull.” 

“I never read much except Henty and Feni- 
more Cooper at school. . . . But—have I got 
rather an extra good memory, then?” 

“You have a better memory than you credit 
yourself with.” 

“Then why can’t I remember all the medical 
stuff? It all goes out of my head like a sieve.” 

“Well, why can’t you?” said Lord Peter, stand¬ 
ing on the hearthrug and smiling down at his 
guest. 

“Well,” said the young man, “the chaps who 
examine one don’t ask the same sort of questions 
you do.” 

“No?” 

“No—they leave you to remember all by your¬ 
self. And it’s beastly hard. Nothing to catch 
hold of, don’t you know? But, I say—how did 
you know about Tommy Pringle being the funny 
man and-” 

“I didn’t, till you told me.” 

“No; I know. But how did you know he’d be 
there if you did ask? I mean to say—I say,” said 
Mr. Piggott, who was becoming mellowed by in¬ 
fluences themselves not unconnected with the ali¬ 
mentary canal—“I say, are you rather clever, or 
am I rather stupid?” 

“No, no,” said Lord Peter, “it’s me. I’m al- 




WHOSE BODY? 


219 


ways askin’ such stupid questions, everybody 
thinks I must mean somethin’ by ’em.” 

This was too involved for Mr. Piggott. 

“Never mind,” said Parker, soothingly, “he’s 
always like that. You mustn’t take any notice. 
He can’t help it. It’s premature senile decay, 
often observed in the families of hereditary legis¬ 
lators. Go away, Wimsey, and play us the ‘Beg¬ 
gar’s Opera,’ or something.” 

“That’s good enough, isn’t it?” said Lord 
Peter, when the happy Mr. Piggott had been 
despatched home after a really delightful evening. 

“I’m afraid so,” said Parker. “But it seems al¬ 
most incredible.” 

“There’s nothing incrediblefin human nature,” 
said Lord Peter; “at least, in educated human 
nature. Have you got that exhumation order?” 

“I shall have it to-morrow. I thought of fixing 
up with the workhouse people for to-morrow aft¬ 
ernoon. I shall have to go and see them first.” 

“Right you are; I’ll let my mother know.” 

“I begin to feel like you, Wimsey, I don’t like 
this job.” 

“I like it a deal better than I did.” 

“You are really certain we’re not making a 
mistake?” 

Lord Peter had strolled across to the window. 
The curtain was not perfectly drawn, and he 
stood gazing out through the gap into lighted 
Piccadilly. At this he turned round: 




220 


WHOSE BODY? 


“If we are,” he said, “we shall know to-mor¬ 
row, and no harm will have been done. But X 
rather think you will receive a certain amount of 
confirmation on your way home. Look here, 
Parker, d’you know, if I were you I’d spend the 
night here. There’s a spare bedroom; I can 
easily put you up.” 

Parker stared at him. 

“Do you mean—I’m likely to be attacked?” 

“I think it very likely indeed.” 

“Is there anybody in the street?” 

“Not now; there was half an hour ago.” 

“When Piggott left?” 

“Yes.” 

“I say—I hope the boy is in no danger.” 

“That’s what I went down to see. I don’t 
think so. Fact is, I don’t suppose anybody would 
imagine we’d exactly made a confidant of Pig¬ 
gott. But I think you and I are in danger. 
lYou’ll stay?” 

“I’m damned if I will, Wimsey; why should I 
run away?” 

“Bosh!” said Peter, “you’d run away all right 
if you believed me, and why not? You don’t be¬ 
lieve me. In fact, you’re still not certain I’m on 
the right tack. Go in peace, but don’t say I didn’t 
warn you.” 

“I won’t; I’ll dictate a message with my dying 
breath to say I w^as convinced.” 

“Well, don’t walk—take a taxi.” 




.WHOSE BODY? 


221 


“Very well, I’ll do that.” 

“And don’t let anybody else get into it.” 

“No.” 

It was a raw, unpleasant night. A taxi depos¬ 
ited a load of people returning from the theatre 
at the block of flats next door, and Parker se¬ 
cured it for himself. He was just giving the ad¬ 
dress to the driver, when a man came hastily run¬ 
ning up from a side street. He was in evening 
dress and an overcoat. He rushed up, signalling 
frantically. 

“Sir—sir!—dear me! why, it’s Mr. Parker! 
How fortunate! If you would be so kind—sum¬ 
moned from the club—a sick friend—can’t find a 
taxi—everybody going home from the theatre— 
if I might share your cab—you are returning to 
Bloomsbury? I want Bussell Square—if I 
might presume—a matter of life and death.” 

He spoke in hurried gasps, as though he had 
been running violently and far. Parker promptly 
stepped out of the taxi. 

“Delighted to be of service to you, Sir Julian,” 
he said; “take my taxi. I am going down to Cra¬ 
ven Street myself, but I’m in no hurry. Pray 
make use of the cab.” 

“It’s extremely kind of you,” said the surgeon. 
“I am ashamed-” 

“That’s all right,” said Parker, cheerily. “I can 
wait.” He assisted Freke into the taxi. “What 








222 


WHOSE BODY? 


number? 24 Russell Square, driver, and look 
sharp. 

The taxi drove off. Parker remounted the? 
stairs and rang Lord Peter’s bell. 

“Thanks, old man,” he said. “I’ll stop tho 
night, after all.” 

“Come in,” said Wimsey. 

“Did you see that?” asked Parker. 

“I saw something. What happened exactly V* 

Parker told his story. “Frankly,” he said, 
“I’ve been thinking you a bit mad, but now I’m 
not quite so sure of it.” 

Peter laughed. 

“Blessed are they that have not seen and yet 
have believed. Bunter, Mr. Parker will stay the 
night. 

“Look here, Wimsey, let’s have another look 
at this business. Where’s that letter?” 

Lord Peter produced Bunter’s essay in dialog. 
Parker studied it for a short time in silence. 

“You know, Wimsey, I’m as full of objections 
to this idea as an egg is of meat.” 

“So’m I, old son. That’s why I want to dig up 
our Chelsea pauper. But trot out your objec¬ 
tions. 

“Well—*—” 

“Well, look here, I don’t pretend to be able 
to fill in all the blanks myself. But here we have 
two mysterious occurrences in one night, and a 
complete chain connecting the one with another 






WHOSE BODY? 


225 


through one particular person. It’s beastly, but 
it’s not unthinkable.’’ 

“Yes, I know all that. But there are one or 
two quite definite stumbling-blocks.” 

“Yes, I know. But, see here. On the one 
hand, Levy disappeared after being last seen- 
looking for Prince of Wales Road at nine 
o’clock. At eight next morning a dead man, not 
unlike him in general outline, is discovered in a 
bath in Queen Caroline Mansions. Levy, by 
Freke’s own admission, was going to see Freke. 
By information received from Chelsea workhouse 
a dead man, answering to the description of 
the Battersea corpse in its natural state, was de¬ 
livered that same day to Freke. We have Levy 
with a past, and no future, as it were; an un¬ 
known vagrant with a future (in the cemetery) 
and no past, and Freke stands between their 
future and their past.” 

“That looks all right-” 

“Yes. Now, further: Freke has a motive for 
getting rid of Levy—an old jealousy.” 

“Very old—and not much of a motive.” 

“People have been known to do that sort of 
thing.* You’re thinking that people don’t keep 


♦Lord Peter was not without authority for his opinion: “With 
respect to the alleged motive, it is of great importance to see 
whether there was a motive for committing such a crime, or 
whether there was not, or whether there is an improbability of 
its having been committed so strong as not to be overpowered 
by positive evidence. But if there he any motive which can be 







224 


WHOSE BODY? 


assigned, I am bound to tell you that the inadequacy of that 
motive is of little importance. We know, from the experience of 
criminal, courts, that atrocious crimes of this sort have been 
committed from very slight motives; not merely from malice 
and revenge, but to gain a small pecuniary advantage, and to 
drive off for a time pressing difficulties.”—L. C. J. Campbell, 
summing up in Reg. v. Palmer, Shorthand Report, p. 308 C. C. 
C., May, 1856, Sess. Pa. 5. (Italics mine. D. L. S.) 

up old jealousies for twenty years or so. Per¬ 
haps not. Not just primitive, brute jealousy. 
That means a word and a blow. But the thing 
that rankles is hurt vanity. That sticks. Hu¬ 
miliation. And we’ve all got a sore spot we don’t 
like to have touched. I’ve got it. You’ve got it. 
Some blighter said hell knew no fury like a 
woman scorned. Stickrh’ it on to women, poor 
devils. Sex is every man’s loco spot—you 
needn’t fidget, you know it’s true—he’ll take a 
disappointment, but not a humiliation. I knew a 
man once who’d been turned down—not too char¬ 
itably—by a girl he was engaged to. He spoke 
quite decently about her. I asked what had be¬ 
come of her. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘she married the other 
fellow.’ And then burst out—couldn’t help him¬ 
self. ‘Lord, yes!’he cried. ‘I think of it—jilted 
for a Scotchman!’ I don’t know why he didn’t 
like Scots, but that was what got him on the raw. 
Look at Freke. I’ve read his books. His at¬ 
tacks on his antagonists are savage. And he’s a. 
scientist. Yet he can’t bear opposition, even in 
his work, which is where any first-class man is 
most sane and open-minded. Do you think he’s a. 
man to take a beating from any man on a side- 






WHOSE BODY? 


225 


issue? On a man’s most sensitive side-issue? 
People are opinionated about side-issues, you 
know. I see red if anybody questions my judg¬ 
ment about a book. And Levy—who was no¬ 
body twenty years ago—romps in and carries off 
Freke’s girl from under his nose. It isn’t the 
girl Freke would bother about—it’s having his 
aristocratic nose put out of joint by a little Jew¬ 
ish nobody. 

“There’s another thing. Freke’s got another 
side-issue. He likes crime. In that criminology 
book of his he gloats over a hardened murderer. 
I’ve read it, and I’ve seen the admiration simply 
glaring out between the lines whenever he writes 
about a callous and successful criminal. He re¬ 
serves his contempt for the victims or the peni¬ 
tents or the men who lose their heads and get 
found out. His heroes are Edmond de la Pom- 
merais, who persuaded his mistress into becoming 
an accessory to her own murder, and George Jo- 
seph Smith of Brides-in-a-bath fame, who could 
make passionate love to his wife in the night and 
carry out his plot to murder her in the morning. 
After all, he thinks conscience is a sort of vermi¬ 
form appendix. Chop it out and you’ll feel all 
the better. Freke isn’t troubled by the usual con¬ 
scientious deterrent. Witness his own hand in 
his books. Now again. The man who went to 
Levy’s house in his place knew the house: Freke 
knew the house; he was a red-haired man, smaller 






226 


WHOSE BODY? 


than Levy, but not much smaller, since he could 
wear his clothes without appearing ludicrous: 
you have seen Freke—you know his height— 
about five-foot-eleven, I suppose, and his auburn 
mane; he probably wore surgical gloves: Freke 
is a surgeon; he was a methodical and daring 
man: surgeons are obliged to be both daring and 
methodical. Now take the other side. The man 
who got hold of the Battersea corpse had to have 
access to dead bodies. Freke obviously had ac¬ 
cess to dead bodies. He had to be cool and quick 
and callous about handling a dead body. Sur¬ 
geons are all that. He had to be a strong man 
to carry the body across the roofs and dump it in 
at Thipps’s window. Freke is a powerful man 
and a member of the Alpine Club. He probably 
wore surgical gloves and he let the body down 
from the roof with a surgical bandage. This 
points to a surgeon again. Fie undoubtedly lived 
in the neighbourhood. Freke lives next door. The 
girl you interviewed heard a bump on the roof of 
the end house. That is the house next to Freke’s. 
Every time we look at Freke, he leads somewhere, 
whereas Milligan and Thipps and Crimplesham 
and all the other people we’ve honoured with our 
suspicion simply led nowhere.” 

“Yes; but it’s not quite so simple as you make 
out. What was Levy doing in that surreptitious 
way at Freke’s on Monday night?” 

“Well, you have Freke’s explanation.” 





WHOSE BODY? 


227 


“Rot, Wimsey. You said yourself it wouldn’t 
do.” 

“Excellent. It won’t do. Therefore Freke 
was lying. Why should he lie about it, unless he 
had some object in hiding the truth?” 

“Well, but why mention it at all?” 

“Because Levy, contrary to all expectation, 
had been seen at the corner of the road. That 
was a nasty accident for Freke. He thought it 
best to be beforehand with an explanation—of! 
sorts. He reckoned, of course, on nobody’s ever 
connecting Levy with Battersea Park.” 

“Well, then, we come back to the first ques¬ 
tion: Why did Levy go there?” 

“I don’t know, but he was got there somehow. 
Why did Freke buy all those Peruvian Oil 
shares?” 

“I don’t know,” said Parker in* his turn. 

“Anyway,” went on Wimsey, “Freke expected 
him, and made arrangement to let him in him¬ 
self, so that Cummings shouldn’t see who the 
caller was.” 

“But the caller left again at ten.” 

“Oh, Charles! I did not expect this of you. 
This is the purest Suggery! Who saw him go? 
Somebody said ‘Good-night’ and walked away 
down the street. And you believe it was Levy 
because Freke didn’t go out of his way to explain 
that it wasn’t.” 

“D’you mean that Freke walked cheerfully out 




228 


WHOSE BODY? 


of the house to Park Lane, and left Levy behind 
-—dead or alive—for Cummings to find?” 

“We have Cummings’s word that he did noth¬ 
ing of the sort. A few minutes after the steps 
walked away from the house, Freke rang the 
library bell and told Cummings to shut up for 
the night.” 

“Then-” 

“Well—there’s a side door to the house, I sup¬ 
pose—in fact, you know there is—Cummings 
said so—through the hospital.” 

“Yes—well, where was Levy?” 

“Levy went up into the library and never came 
down. You’ve been in Freke’s library. Where 
would you have put him?” 

“In my bedroom next door.” 

“Then that’s where he did put him.” 

“But suppose the man went in to turn down 
the bed?” 

“Beds are turned down by the housekeeper, 
earlier than ten o’clock.” 

“Yes . . . But Cummings heard Freke about 
the house all night.” 

“He heard him go in and out two or three 
times. He’d expect him to do that, anyway.” 

“Do you mean to say Freke got all that job 
finished before three in the morning?” 

“Why not?” 

“Quick work.” 

“Well, call it quick work. Besides, why three? 







WHOSE BODY? 


229 


Cummings never saw him again till he called him 
for eight o’clock breakfast.” 

“But he was having a bath at three.” 

“I don’t say he didn’t get back from Park Lane 
before three. But I don’t suppose Cummings 
went and looked through the bathroom keyhole 
to see if he was in the bath.” 

Parker considered again. 

“Plow about Crimplesham’s pince-nez?” he 
asked. 

“That is a bit mysterious,” said Lord Peter. 

“And why Thipps’s bathroom?” 

“Why, indeed? Pure accident, perhaps—or 
pure devilry.” 

“Do you think all this elaborate scheme could 
have been put together in a night, Wimsey?” 

“Far from it. It was conceived as soon as that 
man who bore a superficial resemblance to Levy 
came into the workhouse. He had several days.” 

I see. 

“Freke gave himself away at the inquest. He 
and Grimbold disagreed about the length of the 
man’s illness. If a small man (comparatively 
speaking) like Grimbold presumes to disagree 
with a man like Freke, it’s because he is sure of 
his ground.” 

“Then—if your theory is sound—Freke made 
a mistake.” 

“Yes. A very slight one. He was guarding, 
with unnecessary caution, against starting a train 





230 


WHOSE BODY? 


of thought in the mind of anybody—say, the 
workhouse doctor. Up till then he’d been reckon¬ 
ing on the fact that people don’t think a second 
time about anything (a body, say) that’s once 
been accounted for.” 

“What made him lose his head?” 

“A chain of unforeseen accidents. Levy’s hav¬ 
ing been recognized—my mother’s son having 
foolishly advertised in the Times his connection 
with the Battersea end of the mystery—Detec¬ 
tive Parker (whose photograph has been a little 
prominent in the illustrated press lately) seen 
sitting next door to the Duchess of Denver at 
the inquest. His aim in life was to prevent the 
two ends of the problem from linking up. And 
there were two of the links, literally side by side. 
Many criminals are wrecked by over-caution.” 
Parker was silent. 




XI 


“A regular pea-souper, by Jove,” said Lord 
Peter. 

Parker grunted, and struggled irritably into 
an overcoat. 

“It affords me, if I may say so, the greatest 
satisfaction,” continued the noble lord, “that in 
a collaboration like ours all the uninteresting and 
disagreeable routine work is done by you.” 

Parker grunted again. 

“Do you anticipate any difficulty about the 
warrant?” enquired Lord Peter. 

Parker grunted a third time. 

“I suppose you’ve seen to it that all this busi¬ 
ness is kept quiet?” 

“Of course.” 

“You’ve muzzled the workhouse people?” 

“Of course.” 

“And the police?” 

“Yes.” 

“Because, if you haven’t, there’ll probably be 
nobody to arrest.” 

“My dear Wimsey, do you think I’m a fool?” 

“I had no such hope.” 

Parker grunted finally and departed. 

Lord Peter settled down to a perusal of his 

231 


232 


WHOSE BODY? 


I 


Dante. It afforded him no solace. Lord Peter 
was hampered in his career as a private detective 
by a public-school education. Despite Parker’s 
admonitions, he was not always able to discount 
it. His mind had been warped in its young 
growth by “Raffles” and “Sherlock Holmes,” or 
the sentiments for which they stand. He be¬ 
longed to a family which had never shot a fox. 

“I am an amateur,” said Lord Peter. 

Nevertheless, while communing with Dante, he 
made up his mind. 

In the afternoon he found himself in Harley 
Street. Sir Julian Freke might be consulted 
about one’s nerves from two till four on Tues¬ 
days and Fridays. Lord Peter rang the bell. 

“Have you an appointment, sir?” enquired 
the man who opened the door. 

“No,” said Lord Peter, “but will you give 
Sir Julian my card? I think it possible he may 
see me without one.” 

He sat down in the beautiful room in which 
Sir Julian’s patients awaited his healing counsel* 
It was full of people. Two or three fashionably 
dressed women were discussing shops and serv¬ 
ants together, and teasing a toy griffon. A big, 
worried-looking man by himself in a corner looked 
at his watch twenty times a minute. Lord Peter 
knew him by sight. It was Wintrington, a mil¬ 
lionaire, who had tried to kill himself a few 






WHOSE BODY? 


233 


months ago. He controlled the finances of five 
countries, but he could not control his nerves. 
The finances of five countries were in Sir Julian 
Freke’s capable hands. By the fireplace sat a 
soldierly-looking young man, of about Lord 
Peter’s own age. His face was prematurely lined 
and worn; he sat bolt upright, his restless eyes 
darting in the direction of every slightest sound. 
On the sofa was an elderly woman of modest ap¬ 
pearance, with a young girl. The girl seemed 
listless and wretched; the woman’s look showed 
deep affection, and anxiety tempered with a timid 
hope. Close beside Lord Peter was another, 
younger woman, with a little girl, and Lord 
Peter noticed in both of them the broad cheek¬ 
bones and beautiful, grey, slanting eyes of the 
Slav. The child, moving restlessly about, trod 
on Lord Peter’s patent-leather toe, and the 
mother admonished her in French before turn¬ 
ing to apologize to Lord Peter. 

“Mais je vous en jrie, madame,” said the 
young man, “it is nothing.” 

“She is nervous, pauvre petite,” said the young 
woman. 

“You are seeking advice for her?” 

“Yes. He is wonderful, the doctor. Figure 
to yourself, monsieur, she cannot forget, poor 
child, the things she has seen.” She leaned 
nearer, so that the child might not hear. “We 
have escaped—from starving Russia—six months 




234 


WHOSE BODY? 


ago. I dare not tell you—she has such quick 
ears, and then, the cries, the tremblings, the con¬ 
vulsions—they all begin again. We were skele¬ 
tons when we arrived—mon Dieu!—but that is 
better now. See, she is thin, but she is not 
starved. She would be fatter but for the nerves 
that keep her from eating. We who are older, 
we forget—enfin, on apprend a ne pas y penser— 
but these children! When one is young, mon¬ 
sieur, tout 9a impressionne trop.” 

Lord Peter, escaping from the thraldom of 
British good form, expressed himself in that lan¬ 
guage in which sympathy is not condemned to 
mutism. 

“But she is much better, much better,” said the 
mother, proudly, “the great doctor, he does mar- 
yels.” 

“C’est un homme precieux,” said Lord Peter. 

“Ah, monsieur, c’est un saint qui opere des 
miracles! Nous prions pour lui, Natasha et moi, 
tous les jours. N’est-ce pas, cherie? And con¬ 
sider, monsieur, that he does it all, ce grand 
homme, cet homme illustre, for nothing at all. 
When we come here, we have not even the clothes 
•upon our backs—we are ruined, famished. Et 
avec 9a que nous sommes de bonne famille—mais 
helas! monsieur, en Russie, comme vous savez, 
9a ne vous vaut que des insultes—des atroeites. 
Enfin! the great Sir Julian sees us, he says— 
‘Madame, your little girl is very interesting to 





WHOSE BODY? 


235 


me. Say no more. I cure her for nothing—pour 
ses beaux yeux,’ a-t-il ajoute en riant. Ah, mon¬ 
sieur, c’est un saint, un veritable saint! and Na¬ 
tasha is much, much better.” 

‘‘Madame, je vous en felicite.” 

“And you, monsieur? You are young, well, 
strong—you also suffer? It is still the war, per¬ 
haps?” 

“A little remains of shell-shock,” said Lord 
Peter. 

“Ah, yes. So many good, brave, young 
men-” 

“Sir Julian can spare you a few minutes, my 
lord, if you will come in now,” said the servant. 

Lord Peter bowed to his neighbour, and walked 
across the waiting-room. As the door of the 
consulting-room closed behind him, he remem¬ 
bered having once gone, disguised, into the staff¬ 
room of a German officer. He experienced the 
same feeling—the feeling of being caught in a 
trap, and a mingling of bravado and shame. 

He had seen Sir Julian Freke several times 
from a distance, but never close. Now, while 
carefully and quite truthfully detailing the cir¬ 
cumstances of his recent nervous attack, he con¬ 
sidered the man before him. A man taller than 
himself, with immense breadth of shoulder, and 
wonderful hands. A face beautiful, impassioned 
and inhuman; fanatical, compelling eyes, bright 





236 


WHOSE BODY? 


blue amid the ruddy bush of hair and beard. 
They were not the cool and kindly eyes of the 
family doctor, they were the brooding eyes of the 
inspired scientist, and they searched one through. 

“Well,” thought Lord Peter, “I shan’t have 
to be explicit, anyhow.” 

“Yes,” said Sir Julian, “yes. You had been 
working too hard. Puzzling your mind. Yes. 
More than that, perhaps—troubling your mind, 
shall we say?” 

“I found myself faced with a very alarming 
contingency.” 

“Yes. Unexpectedly, perhaps.” 

“Very unexpected indeed.” 

“Yes. Following on a period of mental and 
physical strain.” 

“Well—perhaps. Nothing out of the way.” 

“Yes. The unexpected contingency was—per¬ 
sonal to yourself?” 

“It demanded an immediate decision as to my 
own actions—yes, in that sense it was certainly 
personal.” 

“Quite so. You would have to assume some 
responsibility, no doubt.” 

“A very grave responsibility.” 

“Affecting others besides yourself?” 

“Affecting one other person vitally, and a very 
great number indirectly.” 

“Yes. The time was night. You were sitting 
in the dark?” 




WHOSE BODY? 


237 


“Not at first. I think I put the light out after¬ 
wards.” 

“Quite so—that action would naturally sug¬ 
gest itself to you. Were you warm?” 

“I think the fire had died down. My man tells 
me that my teeth were chattering when I went 
in to him.” 

“Yes. You live in Piccadilly?” 

“Yes.” 

“Heavy traffic sometimes goes past during the 
night, I expect.” 

“Oh, frequently.” 

“Just so. Now this decision you refer to— 
you had taken that decision.” 

“Yes.” 

“Your mind was made up?” 

“Oh, yes.” 

“You had decided to take the action, whatever 

it was.” 

“Yes.” 

“Yes. It involved perhaps a period of in¬ 
action.” 

“Of comparative inaction—yes.” 

“Of suspense, shall we say?” 

“Yes—of suspense, certainly.” 

“Possibly of some danger?” 

“I don’t know that that was in my mind at 
the time.” 

“No—it was a case in which you could not 
possibly consider yourself.” 




238 


WHOSE BODY? 


“If you like to put it that way.” 

“Quite so. Yes. You had these attacks fre¬ 
quently in 1918?” 

“Yes—I was very ill for some months.” 

“Quite. Since then they have recurred less 
frequently?” 

“Much less frequently.” 

“Yes—when did the last occur?” 

“About nine months ago.” 

“Under what circumstances?” 

“I was being worried by certain family mat¬ 
ters. It was a question of deciding about some 
investments, and I was largely responsible.” 

“Yes. You were interested last year, I think, 
in some police case?” 

“Yes—in the recovery of Lord Attenbury’s 
emerald necklace.” 

“That involved some severe mental exercise?” 

“I suppose so. But I enjoyed it very much.” 

“Yes. Was the exertion of solving the prob¬ 
lem attended by anv bad results physically?” 

“None.” 

“No. You were interested, but not distressed.” 

“Exactly.” 

“Yes. You have been engaged in other in- 
yestigations of the kind?” 

“Yes. Little ones.” 

“With bad results for your health?” 

“Not a bit of it. On the contrary. I took 
up these cases as a sort of distraction. I had a 






WHOSE BODY? 


239 


bad knock just after the war, which didn’t make 
matters any better for me, don’t you know.” 

“Ah! you are not married?” 

“No.” 

“No. Will you allow me to make an exami¬ 
nation? Just come a little nearer to the light. I 
want to see your eyes. Whose advice have you 
had till now?” 

“Sir James Hodges’.” 

“Ah! yes—he was a sad loss to the medical 
profession. A really great man—a true scien¬ 
tist. Yes. Thank you. Now I should like to 
try you with this little invention.” 

“What’s it do?” 

“Well—it tells me about your nervous reac¬ 
tions. Will you sit here?” 

The examination that followed was purely 
medical. When it was concluded, Sir Julian 
said: 

“Now, Lord Peter, I’ll tell you about your¬ 
self in quite untechnical language-” 

“Thanks,” said Peter, “that’s kind of you. I’m 
an awful fool about long words.” 

“Yes. Are you fond of private theatricals. 
Lord Peter?” 

“Not particularly,” said Peter, genuinely sur¬ 
prised. “Awful bore as a rule. Why?” 

“I thought you might be,” said the specialist, 
drily. “Well, now. You know quite well that 
the strain you put on your nerves during the war 





240 


WHOSE BODY? 


has left its mark on you. It has left what I may 
call old wounds in your brain. Sensations re¬ 
ceived by your nerve-endings sent messages to 
your brain, and produced minute physical 
changes there—changes we are only beginning 
to be able to detect, even with our most delicate 
instruments. These changes in their turn set up 
sensations; or I should say, more accurately, that 
sensations are the names we give to these changes 
of tissue when we perceive them: we call them 
horror, fear, sense of responsibility and so on.” 

“Yes, I follow you.” 

“Very well. Now, if you stimulate those 
damaged places in your brain again, you run the 
risk of opening up the old wounds. I mean, that 
if you get nerve-sensations of any kind produc¬ 
ing the reactions which we call horror, fear, and 
sense of responsibility, they may go on to make 
disturbance right along the old channel, and pro¬ 
duce in their turn physical changes which you 
will call by the names you were accustomed to 
associate with them—dread of German mines, 
responsibility for the lives of your men, strained 
attention and the inability to distinguish small 
sounds through the overpowering noise of guns.” 

1 see. 

“This effect would be increased by extraneous 
circumstances producing other familiar physical' 
sensations—night, cold or the rattling of heavy 
traffic, for instance.” 





WHOSE BODY? 


241! 


“Yes.” 

“Yes. The old wounds are nearly healed, but 
not quite. The ordinary exercise of your mental 
faculties has no bad effect. It is only when you 
excite the injured part of your brain.” 

“Yes, I see.” 

“Yes. You must avoid these occasions. You 
must learn to be irresponsible, Lord Peter.” 

“My friends say I’m only too irresponsible 
already.” 

“Very likely. A sensitive nervous tempera¬ 
ment often appears so, owing to its mental 
nimbleness.” 

“Oh!” 

“Yes. This particular responsibility you were 
speaking of still rests upon you?” 

“Yes, it does.” 

“You have not yet completed the course of 
action on which you have decided?” 

“Not yet.” 

“You feel bound to carry it through?” 

“Oh, yes—I can’t back out of it now.” 

“No. You are expecting further strain?” 

“A certain amount.” 

“Do you expect it to last much longer?” 

“Very little longer now.” 

“Ah! Your nerves are not all they should 
be.” 

“No?” 

“No. Nothing to be alarmed about, but you 




242 


WHOSE BODY? 


must exercise care while undergoing this strain, 
and afterwards you should take a complete rest. 
How about a voyage in the Mediterranean or the 
South Seas or somewhere ?” 

“Thanks. I’ll think about it.” 

“Meanwhile, to carry you over the immediate 
trouble I will give you something to strengthen 
your nerves. It will do you no permanent good, 
you understand, but it will tide you over the bad 
time. And I will give you a prescription.” 

“Thank you.” 

Sir Julian got up and went into a small surgery 
leading out of the consulting-room. Lord Peter 
watched him moving about—boiling something 
and writing. Presently he returned with a paper 
and a hypodermic syringe. 

“Here is the prescription. And now, if you 
will just roll up your sleeve, I will deal with the 
necessity of the immediate moment.” 

Lord Peter obediently rolled up his sleeve. 
Sir Julian Freke selected a portion of his fore¬ 
arm and anointed it with iodine. 

“What’s that you’re goin’ to stick into me. 
Bugs?” 

The surgeon laughed. 

“Not exactly,” he said. He pinched up a por¬ 
tion of flesh between his finger and thumb. 
“You’ve had this kind of thing before, I ex¬ 
pect.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter. He watched the 





WHOSE BODY? 


243 


cool fingers, fascinated, and the steady approach 
of the needle. “Yes—I’ve had it before—and, 
d’you know—I don’t care frightfully about it.” 

He had brought up his right hand, and it 
closed over the surgeon’s wrist like a vise. 

The silence was like a shock. The blue eyes 
did not waver; they burned down steadily upon 
the heavy white lids below them. Then these 
slowly lifted; the grey eyes met the blue—coldly, 
steadily—and held them. 

When lovers embrace, there seems no sound 
in the world but their own breathing. So the 
two men breathed face to face. 

“As you like, of course. Lord Peter,” said Sir 
Julian, courteously. 

“Afraid I’m rather a silly ass,” said Lord 
Peter, “but I never could abide these little gadg¬ 
ets. I had one once that went wrong and gave 
me a rotten bad time. They make me a bit nerv¬ 
ous.” 

“In that case,” replied Sir Julian, “it would 
certainly be better not to have the injection. It 
might rouse up just those sensations which we are 
desirous of avoiding. You will take the prescrip¬ 
tion, then, and do what you can to lessen the 
immediate strain as far as possible.” 

“Oh, yes—I’ll take it easy, thanks,” said Lord 
Peter, He rolled his sleeve down neatly. “I’m 
much obliged to you. If I have any further 
trouble I’ll look in again.” 





244 


WHOSE BODY? 


‘‘Do—do-” said Sir Julian, cheerfully. 

“Only make an appointment another time. I’m 
rather rushed these days. I hope your mother is 
quite well. I saw her the other day at that Bat¬ 
tersea inquest. You should have been there. It 
swould have interested you.” 





XII 


The vile, raw fog tore your throat and ravaged 
your eyes. You could not see your feet. You 
stumbled in your walk over poor men’s graves. 

The feel of Parker’s old trench-coat beneath 
your fingers was comforting. You had felt it in 
worse places. You clung on now for fear you 
should get separated. The dim people moving 
in front of you were like Brocken spectres. 

“Take care, gentlemen,” said a toneless voice 
out of the yellow darkness, “there’s an open 
grave just hereabouts.” 

You bore away to the right, and floundered 
in a mass of freshly turned clay. 

“Hold up, old man,” said Parker. 

“Where is Lady Levy?” 

“In the^ mortuary; the Duchess of Denver is 
with her. Your mother is wonderful, Peter.” 

“Isn’t she?” said Lord Peter. 

A dim blue light carried by somebody ahead 
wavered and stood still. 

“Here you are,” said a voice. 

Two Dantesque shapes with pitchforks loomed 

up. 

“Have you finished?” asked somebody. 

“Nearly done, sir.” The demons fell to work 
again with the pitchforks—no, spades. 

245 


246 


WHOSE BODY? 


Somebody sneezed. Parker located the sneezer 
and introduced him. 

“Mr. Levett represents the Home Secretary. 
Lord Peter Wimsey. We are sorry to drag you 
out on such a day, Mr. Levett.” 

“It’s all in the day’s work,” said Mr. Levett, 
hoarsely. He was muffled to the eyes. 

The sound of the spades for many minutes. 
An iron noise of tools thrown down. Demons 
stooping and straining. 

A black-bearded spectre at your elbow. In¬ 
troduced. The Master of the Workhouse. 

“A very painful matter. Lord Peter. You 
will forgive me for hoping you and Mr. Parker 
may be mistaken.” 

“I should like to be able to hope so too.” 

Something heaving, straining, coming up out 
of the ground. 

“Steady, men. This way. Can you see? Be 
careful of the graves—they lie pretty thick here¬ 
abouts. Are you ready?” 

“Right you are, sir. You go on with the lan¬ 
tern. We can follow you.” 

Lumbering footsteps. Catch hold of Parker’s 
trench-coat again. “That you, old man? Oh, 
I beg your pardon, Mr. Levett—thought you 
were Parker.” 

“Hullo, Wimsey—here you are.” 

More graves. A headstone shouldered crooked¬ 
ly aslant. A trip and jerk over the edge of the 





WHOSE BODY? 


247 


rough grass. The squeal of gravel under your 
feet. 

“This way, gentlemen,•mind the step.” 

The mortuary. Raw red brick and sizzling 
gas-jets. Two women in black, and Dr. Grim- 
bold. The coffin laid on the table with a heavy 
thump. 

“’Ave you got that there screw-driver, Bill? 
Thank ’ee. Be keerful wi’ the chisel now. Not 
much substance to these ’ere boards, sir.” 

Several long creaks. A sob. The Duchess’s 
voice, kind but peremptory. 

“Hush, Christine. You mustn’t cry.” 

A mutter of voices. The lurching departure 
of the Dante demons—good, decent demons in 
corduroy. 

Dr. Grimbold’s voice—cool and detached as 
if in the consulting-room. 

“Now—have you got that lamp, Mr. Wingate? 
Thank you. Yes, here on the table, please. Be 
careful not to catch your elbow in the flex, Mr. 
Levett. It would be better, I think, if you came 
on this side. Yes—yes—thank you. That’s ex¬ 
cellent.” 

The sudden brilliant circle of an electric lamp 
over the table. Dr. Grimbold’s beard and spec¬ 
tacles. Mr. Levett blowing his nose. Parker 
bending close. The Master of the Workhouse 
peering over him. The rest of the room in the 
enhanced dimness of the gas-jets and the fog. 





248 


WHOSE BODY? 


A low murmur of voices. All heads bent over 
the work. 

Dr. Grimbold again—beyond the circle of the 
lamplight. 

“We don’t want to distress you unnecessarily. 
Lady Levy. If you will just tell us what to 

look for—the-? Yes, yes, certainly—and— 

yes—stopped with gold? Yes—the lower jaw, 
the last but one on the right? Yes—no teeth 
missing—no—yes? What kind of a mole? Yes 
—just over the left breast? Oh, I beg your par¬ 
don, just under—yes—appendicitis? Yes—a 
long one—yes—in the middle? Yes, I quite 
understand—a scar on the arm.? Yes, I don’t 
know if we shall be able to find that—yes—any 

little constitutional weakness that might-? 

Oh, yes—arthritis—yes—thank you, Lady Levy 
*—that’s very clear. Don’t come unless I ask you 
to. Now, Wingate.” 

A pause. A murmur. “Pulled out? After 
death, you think—well, so do I. Where is Dr. 
Colegrove? You attended this man in the work- 

house? Yes. Do vou recollect-? No? You’re 

quite certain about that? Yes—we mustn’t make 
a mistake, you know. Yes, but there are reasons 
why Sir Julian can’t be present; I’m asking you, 
Dr. Colegrove. Well, you’re certain—that’s all 
I want to know. Just bring the light closer, Mr. 
Wingate, if you please. These miserable shells 
let the damp in so quickly. Ah! what do you 















WHOSE BODY? 


249 


make of this? Yes—yes— well, that’s rather un¬ 
mistakable, isn’t it? Who did the head? Oh, 
Freke—of course. I was going to say they did 
good work at St. Luke’s. Beautiful, isn’t it, Dr. 
Colegrove? A wonderful surgeon—I saw him 
when he was at Guy’s. Oh, no, gave it up years 
ago. Nothing like keeping your hand in. Ah— 
yes, undoubtedly that’s it. Have you a towel 
handy, sir? Thank you. Over the head, if you 
please—I think we might have another here. 
Now, Lady Levy—I am going to ask you to 
look at a scar, and see if you recognize it. I’m 
sure you are going to help us by being very firm. 
Take your time—you won’t see anything more 
than you absolutely must.” 

“Lucy, don’t leave me.” 

“No, dear.” 

A space cleared at the table. The lamplight 
on the Duchess’s white hair. 

“Oh, yes—oh, yes! No, no—I couldn’t be mis¬ 
taken. There’s that funny little kink in it. I’ve 
seen it hundreds of times. Oh, Lucy—Reuben!” 

“Only a moment more, Lady Levy. The 
mole-” 

“I—I think so—oh, yes, that is the very place.” 

“Yes. And the scar—was it three-cornered, 
[just above the elbow?” 

“Yes, oh, yes.” 

“Is this it?” 

“Yes—yes-’* 








250 


WHOSE BODY? 


“I must ask you definitely, Lady Levy. Do 
you, from these three marks identify the body as 
that of your husband ?” 

“Oh! I must, mustn’t I? Nobody else could 
have them just the same in just those places? 
It is my husband. It is Reuben. Oh-” 

“Thank you, Lady Levy. You have been very 
brave and very helpful.” 

“But—I don’t understand yet. How did he 
come here? Who did this dreadful thing?” 

“Hush, dear,” said the Duchess, “the man is 
going to be punished.” 

“Oh, but—how cruel! Poor Reuben! Who 
could have wanted to hurt him? Can I see his 
face?” 

“No, dear,” said the Duchess. “That isn’t 
possible. Come away—you mustn’t distress the 
doctors and people.” 

“No—no—they’ve all been so s kind. Oh, 
Lucy!” 

“We’ll go home, dear. You don’t want us any 
more, Dr. Grimbold?” 

“No, Duchess, thank you. We are very grate¬ 
ful to you and to Lady Levy for coming.” 

There was a pause, while the two womei went 
out, Parker, collected and helpful, escorting them 
to their waiting car. Then Dr. Grimbold again: 

“I think Lord Peter Wimsey ought to see— 
the correctness of his deductions—Lord Peter— 
very painful—you may wish to see—yes, I was 







WHOSE BODY? 


251 


uneasy at the inquest—yes—Lady Levy—re¬ 
markably clear evidence—yes—most shocking 
case—ah, here’s Mr. Parker—you and Lord 
Peter Wimsey entirely justified—do I really un¬ 
derstand-? Really? I can hardly believe it 

—so distinguished a man—as you say, when a 
great brain turns to crime—yes—look here! 
Marvellous work—marvellous—somewhat ob¬ 
scured by this time, of course—but the most 
beautiful sections—here, you see, the left hemi¬ 
sphere—and here—through the corpus striatum— 
here again—the very track of the damage done 
by the blow—wonderful—guessed it—saw the 
effect of the blow as he struck it, you know—ah, 
I should like to see his brain, Mr. Parker—and to 
think that—heavens, Lord Peter, you don’t 
know what a blow you have struck at the whole 
profession—the whole civilized world! Oh, my 
dear sir! Can you ask me? My lips are sealed 
of course—all our lips are sealed.” 

The way back through the burial ground. Fog 
again, and the squeal of wet gravel. 

“Are your men ready, Charles?” 

“They have gone. I sent them off when I saw 
Lady Levy to the car.” 

“Who is with them?” 

"Sugg.” 

“Sugg?” 

“Yes —poor devil. They’ve had him up on 
the mat at headquarters for bungling the case. 











252 


WHOSE BODY? 


All that evidence of Thipps’s about the night 
club was corroborated, you know. That girl he 
gave the gin-and-bitters to was caught, and came 
and identified him, and they decided their case 
wasn’t good enough, and let Thipps and the Hor- 
rocks girl go. Then they told Sugg he had over¬ 
stepped his duty and ought to have been more 
careful. So he ought, but he can’t help being a 
fool. I was sorry for him. It may do him some 
good to be in at the death. After all, Peter, you 
and I had special advantages.” 

“ Yes. Well, it doesn’t matter. Whoever goes 
won't get there in time. Sugg’s as good as an¬ 
other.” 

But Sugg—an experience rare in his career— 
was in time. 

Parker and Lord Peter were at 110 Piccadilly. 
Lord Peter was playing Bach and Parker was 
reading Origen when Sugg was announced. 

“We’ve got our man, sir,” said he. 

“Good God!” said Peter. “Alive?” 

“We were just in time, my lord. We rang the 
bell and marched straight up past his man to the 
library. He was sitting there doing some writ¬ 
ing. When we came in, he made a grab for his 
hypodermic, but we were too quick for him, my 
lord. We didn’t mean to let him slip through 
our hands, having got so far. We searched him 
thoroughly and marched him off.” 





WHOSE BODY? 


253 


“He is actually in gaol, then? 55 

“Oh, yes—safe enough—with two warders to 
see he doesn’t make away with himself.” 

“You surprise me, Inspector. Have a drink.” 

“Thank you, my lord. I may say that I’m 
yery grateful to you—this case was turning out 
a pretty bad egg for me. If I was rude to your 
lordship—-” 

“Oh, it’s all right, Inspector,” said Lord 
Peter, hastily. “I don’t see how you could pos¬ 
sibly have worked it out. I had the good luck 
to know something about it from other sources.” 

“That’s what Freke says.” Already the great 
surgeon was a common criminal in the inspec¬ 
tor’s eyes—a mere surname. “He was writing a 
full confession when we got hold of him, addressed 
to your lordship. The police will have to have it, 
of course, but seeing it’s written for you, I 
brought it along for you to see first. Here it is.” 

He handed Lord Peter a bulky document. 

“Thanks,” said Peter. “Like to hear it, 
Charles?” 

“Bather.” 

Accordingly Lord Peter read it aloud* 







XIII 


Dear Lord Peter—When I was a young man 
I used to play chess with an old friend of my 
father’s. He was a very bad, and a very slow, 
player, and he could never see when a check¬ 
mate was inevitable, but insisted on playing 
every move out. I never had any patience with 
that kind of attitude, and I will freely admit now 
that the game is yours. I must either stay at 
home and be hanged or escape abroad and live in 
an idle and insecure obscurity. I prefer to ac¬ 
knowledge defeat. 

If you have read my book on ‘'Criminal Lu¬ 
nacy,” you will remember that I wrote: “In the 
majority of cases, the criminal betrays himself 
by some abnormality attendant upon this patho¬ 
logical condition of the nervous tissues. His 
mental instability shows itself in various forms: 
an overweening vanity, leading him to brag of 
his achievement; a disproportionate sense of the 
importance of the offence, resulting from the hal¬ 
lucination of religion, and driving him to confes¬ 
sion ; egomania, producing the sense of horror or 
conviction of sin, and driving him to headlong 
flight without covering his tracks; a reckless 
confidence, resulting in the neglect of the most 


2 55 


256 


WHOSE BODY? 


ordinary precautions, as in the case of Henry 
Wainwright, who left a boy in charge of the 
murdered woman’s remains while he went to call 
a cab, or on the other hand, a nervous distrust 
of apperceptions in the past, causing him to re¬ 
visit the scene of the crime to assure himself that 
all traces have been as safely removed as his own 
judgment knows them to be. I will not hesitate 
to assert that a perfectly sane man, not intimi¬ 
dated by religious or other delusions, could al- 
waj r s render himself perfectly secure from de¬ 
tection, provided, that is, that the crime were 
sufficiently premeditated and that he were not 
pressed for time or thrown out in his calculations 
by purely fortuitous coincidence.” 

You know as well as I do, how far I have made 
this assertion good in practice. The two accidents 
which betrayed me, I could not by any possibility 
have foreseen. The first was the chance recog¬ 
nition of Levy by the girl in the Battersea Park 
Road, which suggested a connection between the 
two problems. The sceond was that Thipps 
should have arranged to go down to Denver on 
the Tuesday morning, thus enabling your mother 
to get word of the matter through to you before 
the body was removed by the police and to sug¬ 
gest a motive for the murder out of what she 
knew of my previous personal history. If I had 
been able to destroy these two accidentally 
forged links of circumstance, I will venture to say 





WHOSE BODY? 


257 


that you would never have so much as suspected 
me, still less obtained sufficient evidence to con¬ 
vict. 

Of all human emotions, except perhaps 
those of hunger and fear, the sexual appetite pro¬ 
duces the most violent and, under some circum¬ 
stances, the most persistent reactions; I think, 
however, I am right in saying that at the time 
when I wrote my book, my original sensual im¬ 
pulse to kill Sir Beuben Levy had already be¬ 
come profoundly modified by my habits of 
thought. To the animal lust to slay and the 
primitive human desire for revenge, there was 
added the rational intention of substantiating my 
own theories for the satisfaction of myself and 
the world. If all had turned out as I had 
planned, I should have deposited a sealed account 
of my experiment with the Bank of England, 
instructing my executors to publish it after my 
death. Now that accident has spoiled the com¬ 
pleteness of my demonstration, I entrust the ac¬ 
count to you, whom it cannot fail to interest, with 
the request that you will make it known among 
scientific men, in justice to my professional repu¬ 
tation. 

The really essential factors of success in any 
undertaking are money and opportunity, and as 
a rule, the man who can make the first can make 
the second. During my early career, though I 
was fairly well-off, I had not absolute command 




258 


WHOSE BODY? 


of circumstance. Accordingly I devoted myself 
to my profession, and contented myself with 
keeping up a friendly connection with Reuben 
Levy and his family. This enabled me to remain 
in touch with his fortunes and interests, so that, 
when the moment for action should arrive, I 
might know what weapons to use. 

Meanwhile, I carefully studied criminology in 
fiction and fact—my work on “Criminal Lu¬ 
nacy” was a side-product of this activity—and 
saw how, in every murder, the real crux of the 
problem was the disposal of the body. As a doc¬ 
tor, the means of death were always ready to my 
hand, and I was not likely to make any error in 
that connection. Nor was I likely to betray my¬ 
self on account of any illusory sense of wrong¬ 
doing. The sole difficulty would be that of de¬ 
stroying all connection between my personality 
and that of the corpse. You will remember that 
Michael Finsbury, in Stevenson’s entertaining 
romance, observes: “What hangs people is the 
unfortunate circumstance of guilt.” It became 
clear to me that the mere leaving about of a 
superfluous corpse could convict nobody, provided 
that nobody was guilty in connection with that 
particular corpse . Thus the idea of substituting 
the one body for the other was early arrived at, 
though it was not till I obtained the practical 
direction of St. Luke’s Hospital that I found my¬ 
self perfectly unfettered in the choice and han- 




WHOSE BODY? 


259 


dling of dead bodies. From this period on, I kept 
a careful watch on all the material brought in 
for dissection. 

My opportunity did not present itself until 
the week before Sir Reuben’s disappearance, 
when the medical officer at the Chelsea work- 
house sent word to me that an unknown vagrant 
had been injured that morning by the fall of a 
piece of scaffolding, and was exhibiting some very 
interesting nervous and cerebral reactions. I 
went round and saw the case, and was immediate¬ 
ly struck by the man’s strong superficial resem¬ 
blance to Sir Reuben. He had been heavily struck 
on the back of the neck, dislocating the fourth 
and fifth cervical vertebrae and heavily bruising 
the spinal cord. It seemed highly unlikely that 
he could ever recover, either mentally or physi¬ 
cally, and in any case there appeared to me to be 
no object in indefinitely prolonging so unprofit¬ 
able an existence. He had obviously been able to 
support life until recently, as he was fairly well 
nourished, but the state of his feet and clothing 
showed that he was unemployed, and under pres¬ 
ent conditions he was likely to remain so. I 
decided that he would suit my purpose very well, 
and immediately put in train certain transactions 
in the City which I had already sketched out in 
my own mind. In the meantime, the reactions 
mentioned by the workhouse doctor were interest¬ 
ing, and I made careful studies of them, and ar- 




260 


WHOSE BODY? 


ranged for the delivery of the body to the hospital 
when I should have completed my preparations. 

On the Thursday and Friday of that week I 
made private arrangements with various brokers 
to buy the stock of certain Peruvian oil-fields, 
which had gone down almost to waste-paper. 
This part of my experiment did not cost me very 
much, but I contrived to arouse considerable curi¬ 
osity, and even a mild excitement. At this point 
I was of course careful not to let my name ap¬ 
pear. The incidence of Saturday and.Sunday 
gave me some anxiety lest my man should after 
all die before I was ready for him, but by the 
use of saline injections I contrived to keep him 
alive and, late on Sunday night, he even mani¬ 
fested disquieting symptoms of at any rate a 
partial recovery. 

On Monday morning the market in Peruvians 
opened briskly. Rumours had evidently got 
about that somebody knew something, and this 
day I was not the only buyer in the market. I 
bought a couple of hundred more shares in my 
own name, and left the matter to take care of 
itself. At lunch time I made my arrangements 
to run into Levy accidentally at the corner of the 
Mansion House. He expressed (as I expected) 
his surprise at seeing me in that part of London. 
I simulated some embarrassment and suggested 
that we should lunch together. I dragged him 
to a place a bit off the usual beat, and there 





WHOSE BODY? 


261 


ordered a good wine and drank of it as much as 
he might suppose sufficient to induce a confiden¬ 
tial mood. I asked him how things were going 
on ’Change. He said, “Oh, all right,” but ap¬ 
peared a little doubtful, and asked me whether 
I did anything in that way. I said I had a little 
flutter occasionally, and that, as a matter of fact, 
I’d been put on to rather a good thing. I 
glanced round apprehensively at this point, and 
shifted mv chair nearer to his. 

“I suppose you don’t know anything about 
Peruvian Oil, do you?” he said. 

I started and looked round again, and lean¬ 
ing across to him, said, dropping my voice: 

“Well, I do, as a matter of fact, but I don’t 
want it to get about. I stand to make a good bit 
on it.” 

“But I thought the thing was hollow,” he said; 
“it hasn’t paid a dividend for umpteen years.” 

“No,” I said, “it hasn’t, but it’s going to. I’ve 
got inside information.” He looked a bit uncon¬ 
vinced, and I emptied off my glass, and edged 
right up to his ear. 

“Look here,” I said, “I’m not giving this away 
to everyone, but I don’t mind doing you and 
Christine a good turn. You know, I’ve always 
kept a soft place in my heart for her, ever since 
the old days. You got in ahead of me that time, 
and now it’s up to me to heap coals of fire on you 
both.” 




262 


WHOSE BODY? 


I was a little excited by this time, and he 
thought I was drunk. 

“It’s very kind of you, old man,” he said, “but 
I’m a cautious bird, you know, always was. I’d 
* like a bit of proof.” 

And he shrugged up his shoulders and looked 
like a pawnbroker. 

“I’ll give it to you,” I said, “but it isn’t safe 
here. Come round to my place to-night after 
dinner, and I’ll show you the report.” 

“How d’you get hold of it?” said he. 

“I’ll tell you to-night,” said I. “Come round 
after dinner—any time after nine, say.” 

“To Harley Street?” he asked, and I saw that 
he meant coming. 

“No,” I said, “to Battersea—Prince of Wales 
Hoad; I’ve got some work to do at the hospital. 
And look here,” I said, “don’t you let on to a soul 
that you’re coming. I bought a couple of hun¬ 
dred shares to-day, in my own name, and people 
are sure to get wind of it. If we’re known to be 
about together, someone’ll twig something. In 
fact, it’s anything but safe talking about it in this 
place.” 

“All right,” he said, “I won’t say a word to 
anybody. I’ll turn up about nine o’clock. You’re 
sure it’s a sound thing?” 

“It can’t go wrong,” I assured him. And I 
meant it. 

We parted after that, and I went round to the 






WHOSE BODY? 


263 


workhouse. My man had died at about eleven 
o’clock. I had seen him just after breakfast, and 
was not surprised. I completed the usual for¬ 
malities with the workhouse authorities, and ar¬ 
ranged for his delivery at the hospital about 
seven o’clock. 

In the afternoon, as it was not one of my days 
to be in Harley Street, I looked up an old friend 
who lives close to Hyde Park, and found that he 
was just off to Brighton on some business or 
other. I had tea with him, and saw him off by 
the 5:35 from Victoria. On issuing from the 
barrier it occurred to me to purchase an evening- 
paper, and I thoughtlessly turned my steps to the 
bookstall. The usual crowds were rushing to 
catch suburban trains home, and on moving away 
I found myself involved in a contrary stream of 
travellers coming up out of the Underground, or 
bolting from all sides for the 5:45 to Battersea 
Park and Wandsworth Common. I disengaged 
myself after some buffeting and went home in a 
taxi; and it was not till I was safely seated there 
that I discovered somebody’s gold-rimmed pince- 
nez involved in the astrachan collar of my over¬ 
coat. The time from 6:15 to seven I spent con¬ 
cocting something to look like a bogus report for 
Sir Reuben. 

At seven I went through to the hospital, and 
found the workhouse van just delivering my sub¬ 
ject at the side door. I had him taken straight up 




264 


WHOSE BODY? 


to the theatre, and told the attendant, William 
Watts, that I intended to work there that night. 
I told him I would prepare the body myself—the 
injection of a preservative would have been a 
most regrettable complication. I sent him about 
his business, and then went home and had dinner. 
I told my man that I should be working in the 
hospital that evening, and that he could go to* 
bed at 10: 30 as usual, as I could not tell whether 
I should be late or not. He is used to my erratic 
ways. I only keep two servants in the Battersea 
house—the man-servant and his wife, who cooks 
for me. The rougher domestic work is done by a 
charwoman, who sleeps out. The servants’ bed¬ 
room is at the top of the house, overlooking 
Prince of Wales Road. 

As soon as I had dined I established mvself in 

* %! 

the hall with some papers. My man had cleared 
dinner by a quarter past eight, and I told him 
to give me the siphon and tantalus; and sent him 
downstairs. Levy rang the bell at twenty min¬ 
utes past nine, and I opened the door to him my¬ 
self. My man appeared at the other end of the 
hall, but I called to him that it was all right, and 
he went away. Levy wore an overcoat with eve¬ 
ning dress and carried an umbrella. “Why, how 
wet you are!” I said. “How did you come?” 
“By ’bus,” he said, “and the fool of a conductor 
forgot to put me down at the end of the road. 
It’s pouring cats and dogs and pitch-dark—I 






WHOSE BODY? 


265 


couldn’t see where I was.” I was glad he hadn’t 
taken a taxi, but I had rather reckoned on his 
not doing so. “Your little economies will be the 
death of you one of these days,” I said. I was 
right there, but I hadn’t reckoned on their being 
the death of me as well. I say again, I could not 
have foreseen it. 

I sat him down by the fire, and gave him a 
whisky. He was in high spirits about some deal 
in Argentines he was bringing off the next day. 
We talked money for about a quarter of an hour 
and then he said: 

“Well, how about this Peruvian mare’s-nest of 
yours?” 

“It’s no mare’s-nest,” I said; “come and have 
a look at it.” 

I took him upstairs into the library, and 
switched on the centre light and the reading lamp 
on the writing table. I gave him a chair at the 
table with his back to the fire, and fetched the 
papers I had been faking, out of the safe. He 
took them, and began to read them, poking over 
them in his short-sighted way, while I mended 
the fire. As soon as I saw his head in a favourable 
position I struck him heavily with the poker, just 
over the fourth cervical. It was delicate work 
calculating the exact force necessary to kill him 
without breaking the skin, hut my professional 
experience was useful to me. He gave one loud 
gasp, and tumbled forward on to the table quite 




266 


WHOSE BODY? 


noiselessly. I put the poker back, and examined 
him. His neck was broken, and he was quite 
dead. I carried him into my bedroom and un¬ 
dressed him. It was about ten minutes to ten 
when I had finished. I put him away under my 
bed, which had been turned down for the night, 
and cleared up the papers in the library. Then 
I went downstairs, took Levy’s umbrella, and 
let myself out at the hall door, shouting “Good¬ 
night” loudly enough to be heard in the basement 
if the servants should be listening. I walked 
briskly away down the street, went in by the hos¬ 
pital side door, and returned to the house noise¬ 
lessly by way of the private passage. It would 
have been awkward if anybody had seen me then, 
but I leaned over the back stairs and heard the 
cook and her husband still talking in the kitchen. 
I slipped back into the hall, replaced the um¬ 
brella in the stand, cleared up my papers there, 
went up into the library and rang the bell. When 
the man appeared I told him to lock up every¬ 
thing except the private door to the hospital. 
I waited in the library until he had done so, and 
about 10:30 I heard both servants go up to bed. 
I waited a quarter of an hour longer and then 
went through to the dissecting-room. I wheeled 
one of the stretcher-tables through the passage 
to the house door, nnd then went to fetch Levy. 
It was a nuisance having to get him downstairs, 

but I had not liked to make awav with him in 

*> 



WHOSE BODY? 


267 


any of the ground-floor rooms, in ease my servant 
should take a fancy to poke his head in during 
the few minutes that I was out of the house, or 
while locking up. Besides, that was a flea-bite to 
what I should have to do later. I put Levy on 
the table, wheeled him across to the hospital and 
substituted him for my interesting pauper. I 
was sorry to have to abandon the idea of getting 
a look at the latter’s brain, but I could not afford 
to incur suspicion. It was still rather early, so I 
knocked down a few minutes getting Levy ready 
for dissection. Then I put my pauper on the 
table and trundled him over to the house. It 
was now five past eleven, and I thought I might 
conclude that the servants were in bed. I carried 
the body into my bedroom. He was rather heavy, 
but less so than Levy, and my Alpine experience 
had taught me how to handle bodies. It is as 
much a matter of knack as of strength, and I am, 
in any case, a powerful man for my height. I 
put the body into the bed—not that I expected 
anyone to look in during my absence, but if they 
should they might just as well see me apparently 
asleep in bed. I drew the clothes a little over 
his head, stripped, and put on Levy’s clothes, 
which were fortunately a little big for me every¬ 
where, not forgetting to take his spectacles, 
watch and other oddments. At a little before half 
past eleven I was in the road looking for a cab. 
People were just beginning to come home from 




268 


WHOSE BODY? 


the theatre, and I easily secured one at the cor¬ 
ner of Prince of Wales Hoad. I told the man 
•to drive me to Hyde Park Corner. There I got 
out, tipped him well, and asked him to pick me 
up again at the same place in an hour’s time. He 
assented with an understanding grin, and I 
walked on up Park Lane. I had my own clothes 
with me in a suitcase, and carried my own over¬ 
coat and Levy’s umbrella. When I got to No. 9 
there were lights in some of the top windows. I 
was very nearly too early, owing to the old man’s 
having sent the servants to the theatre. I waited 
about for a few minutes, and heard it strike the 
quarter past midnight. The lights were extin¬ 
guished shortly after, and I let myself in with 
Levy’s key. 

It had been my original intention, when I 
thought over this plan of murder, to let Levy 
disappear from the study or the dining-room, 
leaving only a heap of clothes on the hearth-rug. 
The accident of my having been able to secure 
Lady Levy’s absence from London, however, 
made possible a solution more misleading, though 
less pleasantly fantastic. I turned on the hall 
light, hung up Levy’s wet overcoat and placed 
his umbrella in the stand. I walked up noisily 
and heavily to the bedroom and turned off the 
light by the duplicate switch on the landing. I 
knew the house well enough, of course. There 
was no chance of my running into the man-serv- 




WHOSE BODY? 


269 


ant. Old Levy was a simple old man, who liked 
doing things for himself. He gave his valet little 
work, and never required any attendance at 
night. In the bedroom I took off Levy’s gloves 
and put on a surgical pair, so as to leave no tell¬ 
tale finger-prints. As I wished to convey the im¬ 
pression that Levy had gone to bed in the usual 
way, I simply went to bed. The surest and sim¬ 
plest method of making a thing appear to have 
been done is to do it. A bed that has been rum¬ 
pled about with one’s hands, for instance, never 
looks like a bed that has been slept in. I dared 
not use Levy’s brush, of course, as my hair is not 
of his colour, but I did everything else. I sup¬ 
posed that a thoughtful old man like Levy would 
put his boots handy for his valet, and I ought to 
have deduced that he would fold up his clothes. 
That was a mistake, but not an important one. 
Bemembering that well-thought-out little work 
of Mr. Bentley’s, I had examined Levy’s mouth 
for false teeth, but he had none. I did not for¬ 
get, however, to wet his toothbrush. 

At one o’clock I got up and dressed in my own 
clothes by the light of my own pocket torch. I 
dared not turn on the bedroom lights, as there 
were light blinds to the windows. I put on my 
own boots and an old pair of galoshes outside the 
door. There was a thick Turkey carpet on the 
stairs and hall-floor, and I was not afraid of leav¬ 
ing marks. I hesitated whether to chance the 






270 


WHOSE BODY? 


banging of the front door, but decided it would 
be safer to take the latchkey. (It is now in the 
Thames. I dropped it over Battersea Bridge the 
next day.) I slipped quietly down, and listened 
for a few minutes with my ear to the letter-box. 
I heard a constable tramp past. As soon as his 
steps had died away in the distance I stepped out, 
and pulled the door gingerly to. It closed almost 
soundlessly, and I walked away to pick up my 
cab. I had an overcoat of much the same pattern 
as Levy’s, and had taken the precaution to pack 
an opera hat in my suitcase. I hoped the man 
would not notice that I had no umbrella this 
time. Fortunately the rain had diminished for 
the moment to a sort of drizzle, and if he noticed 
anything he made no observation. I told him to 
stop at 50 Overstrand Mansions, and I paid him 
off there, and stood under the porch till he had 
driven away. Then I hurried round to my own 
side door and let myself in. It was about a quar¬ 
ter to two, and the harder part of my task still 
lay before me. 

My first step was so to alter the appearance of 
my subject as to eliminate any immediate sug¬ 
gestion either of Levy or of the workhouse va¬ 
grant. A fairly superficial alteration was all I 
considered necessary, since there was not likely 
to be any hue-and-cry after the pauper. He was 
fairly accounted for, and his deputy was at hand 
to represent him. Yor, if Levy was after all 





WHOSE BODY? 


271 


tracted to my house, would it be difficult to show 
that the body in evidence was, as a matter of fact, 
not his. A clean shave and a little hair-oiling 
and manicuring seemed sufficient to suggest a 
distinct personality for my silent accomplice. His 
hands had been well washed in hospital, and 
though calloused, were not grimy. I was not able 
to do the work as thoroughly as I should have 
liked, because time was getting on. I was not 
sure how long it would take me to dispose of 
him, and, moreover, I feared the onset of rigor 
mortis, which would make my task more diffi¬ 
cult. When I had him barbered to my satisfac¬ 
tion, I fetched a strong sheet and a couple of 
wide roller bandages, and fastened him up care¬ 
fully, padding him with cotton wool wherever 
the bandages might chafe or leave a bruise. 

Now came the really ticklish part of the busi¬ 
ness. I had already decided in my own mind 
that the only way of conveying him from the 
house was by the roof. To go through the gar¬ 
den at the back in this soft wet weather was to 
leave a ruinous trail behind us. To carry a dead 
man down a suburban street in the middle of the 
night seemed outside the range of practical poli¬ 
tics. On the roof, on the other hand, the rain, 
which would have betrayed me on the ground, 
would stand my friend. 

To reach the roof, it was necessary to carry 
my burden to the top of the house, past my serv- 




WHOSE BODY? 


272 


ants’ room, and hoist him out through the trap¬ 
door in the box-room roof. Had it merely been a 
question of going quietly up there myself, I 
should have had no fear of waking the servants, 
but to do so burdened by a heavy body was more 
difficult. It would be possible, provided that the 
man and his wife were soundly asleep, but if not, 
the lumbering tread on the narrow stair and the 
noise of opening the trapdoor would be only too 
plainly audible. I tiptoed delicately up the staii; 
and listened at their door. To my disgust I 
heard the man give a grunt and mutter something 
as he moved in his bed. 

I looked at my watch. My preparations had 
taken nearly an hour, first and last, and I dared 
not be too late on the roof. I determined to take 
a bold step and, as it were, bluff out an alibi. I 
went without precaution against noise into the 
bathroom, turned on the hot and cold water taps 
to the full and pulled out the plug. 

My household has often had occasion to com¬ 
plain of my habit of using the bath at irregular 
night hours. Not only does the rush of water 
into the cistern disturb any sleepers on the Prince 
of Wales Road side of the house, but my cistern 
is afflicted with "peculiarly loud gurglings and 
thumpings, while frequently the pipes emit a loud 
groaning sound. To my delight, on this particu¬ 
lar occasion, the cistern was in excellent form, 
honking, whistling and booming like a railway 




WHOSE BODY? 


273 


terminus. I gave the noise five minutes’ start, 
and when I calculated that the sleepers would 
have finished cursing me and put their heads un¬ 
der the clothes to shut out the din, I reduced the 
flow of water to a small stream and left the bath¬ 
room, taking good care to leave the light burning 
and lock the door after me. Then I picked up 
my pauper and carried him upstairs as lightly as 
possible. 

The box-room is a small attic on the side of the 
landing opposite to the servants’ bedroom and the 
cistern-room. It has a trapdoor, reached by a 
short, wooden ladder. I set this up, hoisted up 
my pauper and climbed up after him. The water 
was still racing into the cistern, which was making 
a noise as though it were trying to digest an iron 
chain, and with the reduced flow in the bathroom 
the groaning of the pipes had risen almost to a 
hoot. I was not afraid of anybody hearing other 
noises. I pulled the ladder through on to the 
roof after me. 

Between my house and the last house in Queen 
Caroline Mansions there is a space of only a few 
feet. Indeed, when the Mansions were put up, I 
believe there was some trouble about ancient, 
lights, but I suppose the parties compromised 
somehow. Anyhow, my seven-foot ladder reached 
well across. T tied the body firmly to the ladder, 
and pushed it over till the far end was resting on 
the parapet of the opposite house. Then I took 




274 


WHOSE BODY? 


a short run across the cistern-room and the box- 
room roof, and landed easily on the other side, the 
parapet being happily both low and narrow. 

The rest was simple. I carried my pauper 
along the flat roofs, intending to leave him, like 
the hunchback in the story, on someone’s stair¬ 
case or down a chimney. I had got about half¬ 
way along when I suddenly thought, “Why, this 
must be about little Thipps’s place,” and I re¬ 
membered his silly face, and his silly chatter 
about vivisection. It occurred to me pleasantly 
how delightful it would be to deposit my parcel 
with him and see what he made of it. I lay down 
and peered over the parapet at the back. It was 
pitch-dark and pouring with rain again by this 
time, and I risked using my torch. That was the 
only incautious thing I did, and the odds against 
being seen from the houses opposite were long 
enough. One second’s flash showed me what I 
had hardly dared to hope—an open window just 
below me. 

I knew those flats well enough to be sure it 
was either the bathroom or the kitchen. I made 
a noose in a third bandage that I had brought 
with me, and made it fast under the<arms of the 
corpse. I twisted it into a double rope, arid se¬ 
cured the end to the iron stanchion of a chimney- 
stack. Then I dangled our friend over. I went 
down after him myself with the aid of a drain- 





WHOSE BODY? 


275 


pipe and was soon hauling him in by Thipps’s 
bathroom window. 

By that time I had got a little conceited with 
myself, and spared a few minutes to lay him out 
prettily and make him shipshape. A sudden in¬ 
spiration suggested that I should give him the 
pair of pince-nez which I had happened to pick 
up at Victoria. I came across them in my pocket 
while I was looking for a penknife to loosen a 
knot, and I saw what distinction they would lend 
his appearance, besides making it more mislead¬ 
ing. I fixed them on him, effaced all traces of my 
presence as far as possible, and departed as I had 
come, going easily up between the drain-pipe and 
the rope. 

I walked quietly back, re-crossed my crevasse 
and carried in my ladder and sheet. My discreet 
accomplice greeted me with a reassuring gurgle 
and thump. I didn’t make a sound on the stairs. 
Seeing that I had now been having a bath for 
about three-quarters of an hour, I turned the 
water off, and enabled my deserving domestics to 
get a little sleep. I also felt it was time I had 
a little myself. 

First, however, I had to go over to the hos¬ 
pital and make all safe there. I took off Levy’s 
head, and started to open up the face. In 
twenty minutes his own wife could not have rec¬ 
ognized him. I returned, leaving my wet 
galoshes and mackintosh by the garden door. My 





276 


WHOSE BODY? 


trousers I dried by the gas stove in my bedroom* 
and brushed away all traces of mud and brick- 
dust. My pauper’s beard I burned in the library. 

I got a good two hours’ sleep from five to seven, 
when my man called me as usual. I apologized 
for having kept the water running so long and so 
late, and added that I thought I would have the 
cistern seen to. 

I was interested to note that I was rather extra 
hungry at breakfast, showing that my night’s 
work had caused a certain wear-and-tear of tis¬ 
sue. I w r ent over afterwards to continue my dis¬ 
section. During the morning a peculiarly thick¬ 
headed police inspector came to inquire whether 
a body had escaped from the hospital. I had 
him brought to me where I was, and had the 
pleasure of showing him the work I was doing 
on Sir Reuben Levy’s head. Afterwards I went 
round with him to Thipps’s and was able to sat¬ 
isfy myself that my pauper looked very con- 
yincing. 

As soon as the Stock Exchange opened I tele¬ 
phoned my various brokers, and by exercising a 
little care, was able to sell out the greater part of 
my Peruvian stock on a rising market. Towards 
the end of the day, however, buyers became 
rather unsettled as a result of Levy’s death, and 
in the end I did not make more than a few hun¬ 
dreds by the transaction. 

I Trusting I have now made clear to you any 






WHOSE BODY? 


277 


point which you may have found obscure, and 
with congratulations on the good fortune and 
perspicacity which have enabled you to defeat me, 
I remain, with kind remembrances to your 
mother, 

Yours very truly, 

Julian Freke. 

Post-Scriptum: My will is made, leaving my 
money to St. Luke’s Hospital, and bequeathing 
my body to the same institution for dissection. I 
feel sure that my brain will be of interest to the 
scientific world. As I shall die by my own hand, 
I imagine that there may be a little difficulty 
about this. Will you do me the favour, if you can, 
of seeing the persons concerned in the inquest, 
and obtaining that the brain is not damaged by 
an unskillful practitioner at the post-mortem, and 
that the J>ody is disposed of according to my 
wish? 

By the way, it may be of interest to you to 
know that 1 appreciated your motive in calling 
this afternoon. It conveyed a warning, and I am 
acting upon it. In spite of the disastrous conse¬ 
quences to myself, I was pleased to realize that 
you had not underestimated my nerve and intelli¬ 
gence, and refused the injection. Had you sub¬ 
mitted to it, you would, of course, never have 
reached home alive. No trace would have been 
left in your body of the injection, which con- 





278 


WHOSE BODY? 


sisted of a harmless preparation of strychnine, 
mixed with an almost unknown poison, for which 
there is at present no recognized test, a concen¬ 
trated solution of sn- 

At this point the manuscript broke off. 

“Well, that’s all clear enough,” said Parker. 

“Isn’t it queer?” said Lord Peter. “All that 
coolness, all those brains—and then he couldn’t 
resist writing a confession to show how clever he 
was, even to keep his head out of the noose.” 

“And a very good thing for us,” said Inspector 
Sugg, “but Lord bless you, sir, these criminals 
are all alike.” 

“Freke’s epitaph,” said Parker, when the In¬ 
spector had departed. “What next, Peter?” 

“I shall now give a dinner party,” said Lord 
Peter, “to Mr. John P. Milligan and his secre¬ 
tary and to Messrs. Crimplesham and Wicks. I 
feel they deserve it for not having murdered 
Levy.” 

“Well, don’t forget the Thippses,” said Mr. 
Parker. 

“On no account,” said Lord Peter, “would I 
deprive myself of the pleasure of Mrs. Thipps’s 
company. Bunter!” 

“My lord?” , ; ' 

“The Napoleon brandy.” 


The End 








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